Spain wants to offer a good show on its return to Barcelona
The Spanish team begins to look at Qatar with a friendly against Albania at the RCDE Stadium
MADRID, 25 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish soccer team will play again this Saturday in Barcelona, where it hasn’t done so for almost two decades and where it will host Albania (7:45 p.m./La1) at the RCDE Stadium in what will be its first exam to start preparing for a World Cup Qatar that still looks distant.
With many teams still fighting to have their ticket for the next World Cup, the ‘Red’ has avoided this extra pressure that has already claimed some illustrious victim such as Italy, current European champion, and will be able to use this March window to go fine-tuning your setup.
And he will do it first in Barcelona, a city where he had played since February 18, 2004, then at the Montjuic Olympic Stadium. That day, with Iñaki Sáez as coach, he also defeated Peru 2-1 in a friendly with goals from Joseba Etxeberria and Rubén Baraja.
This comeback has raised a lot of expectations and it is expected that the RCD Espanyol fief will be close to a full house. Now, it’s up to the three-time European champion to reward this welcome with a good performance against a rival that appears affordable, but also competitive and already far from that ‘Cinderella’ condition of yesteryear.
Four months after beating Sweden 1-0 in La Cartuja and qualifying for Qatar, the national coach, Luis Enrique Martínez, has not presented an excessively new list for this duel and next Tuesday’s against Iceland in Riazor. In addition, the return of many of the injured who could not be in November such as Pedri and Ferran Torres, the surprise was the English Brentford goalkeeper David Raya, who has left David de Gea without a place, and the rest granted to Sergio Busquets .
The Asturian coach already warned after giving the list last week that he does not want any kind of relaxation and that he wants to see “hunger” in his players, some immersed in this always complicated stretch of the season where everything begins to be decided.
In this sense, he will have to begin to resolve several doubts that exist at this moment in some of the positions in various areas of the field. In defense, everything indicates that it will be the left-handed duo of central defenders made up of Pau Torres and Aymeric Laporte who will play, while César Azpilicueta, Dani Carvajal and the ‘multipurpose’ Marcos Llorente opt for the right back, and Marcos Alonso, who returns after perform very well in the ‘F4’ of the League of Nations and as a substitute for the injured José Luis Gayá, and Jordi Alba, on the left.
For the center of the field, Rodri Hernández will be the ‘5’ in the absence of the captain, and it will be necessary to see who surrounds him. The great moment of Pedri González seems to make him almost indisputable at this moment, while Gavi, the great bet of Luis Enrique, Koke and Soler, three players with different conditions, fight for the remaining gap.
ALBANIA WANTS TO STAND UP WITH ITS YOUTH
Above, Raúl de Tomás’s last-minute withdrawal leaves Álvaro Morata as the preferred option to be the ‘9’. Ferran Torres, always a scorer with the ‘Roja’, seems to be the other fixed in the trident, while Pablo Sarabia, Dani Olmo and Yéremi Pino compete to occupy the remaining side.
Spain will surely find themselves in a game against Albania, who have never beaten them in their seven clashes and who already lost 3-0 on their last visit to Spanish soil in 2017. Only Jordi Alba and Koke remain as survivors of that resolved clash in the first half hour and that gave the qualification for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
However, the Albanian team, which a year before that defeat had made history by playing in the European Championship, has continued to gain in competitiveness and although it could not qualify for Qatar by finishing third in its group, surpassed by England and by a Poland that He led by two points. These two teams were the only ones capable of defeating Italy’s Edoardo Reja, who, in any case, tend to lower their performance somewhat when playing away from their fans.
In their ranks, there are well-known players from European football such as the goalkeeper Berisha or the full-back Hysaj, and from Spanish such as the Rayo Vallecano full-back Iván Balliu, the Espanyol midfielder Keidi Baré, the Granada winger Myrto Uzuni or the striker on loan from the FC Barcelona Rey Manaja, but also good new values, mainly the 19-year-old midfielder from Empoli Kristjan Asllani or the Southampton striker Armando Broja.
“We know very well how Spain plays, especially in terms of possession, and we have to be very good at pressuring them so that they don’t have the opportunity to build their game. Beyond the result I want to see the evolution of our game, we played against France or England and we didn’t do well, but against Spain I would like to be in the game until the end”, warned Reja after giving the list.
DATASHEET.
–POSSIBLE ALIGNMENTS.
SPAIN: Unai Simón; Azpilicueta, Pau Torres, Laporte, Jordi Alba; Pedri, Rodri, Koke; Ferran Torres, Morata and Olmo.
ALBANIA: Berisha; Hysaj, Ismajli, Kumbulla, Balliu; Asllani, Ramadani, Bare, Uzuni; Bajrami y Broja.
– REFEREE: Trustin Farrugia Cann (MAL).
–STADIUM: RCDE Stadium in Barcelona.
–TIME: 19.45/La1.