Christmas for Valladolid and Barça it will depend a lot on the result of the match in the Nuevo Zorrilla (10pm, Movistar LaLiga). They are two teams in transit looking to test their trends of the last week and that do not have much margin for error. Both teams seek to make him Easter to the rival so they can spend a few parties in peace (follow the meeting live on As.com).
The locals mark the border of the descent because they are paying a catastrophic start to the season that they have been correcting in recent weeks. Their numbers are worse than their feelings. What happens to Barcelona is almost worse, where neither numbers nor sensations accompany. Or at least, not continuously.
In Valladolid they have added two victories and two draws (the last, on Saturday in the field of Seville) in the five previous days. Barcelona, for their part, is seeing how LaLiga options slip away.
Ronald Koeman He demanded that his men win all the last matches of the year as a premise to have options to fight for LaLiga when the new year arrived. His players failed in Cadiz (2-1 loss) and at home to him Valencia (2-2) and the margin of error is already microscopic.
Looking ahead to this match, Koeman aspired to recover Dembélé, but being a player with an extensive history of injuries, he has chosen to leave him in Barcelona. Within the scarcity of resources the novelties may be the return of Lenglet as Araújo's partner in the center of defense and the ownership of De Jong with Pjanic. On the left, the doubt between Coutinho, Pedri or Braithwaite will remain.
At Valladolid, Sergio continues to add actors to his idea of choral football, in which in the absence of a star all collaborate with their goals. A game that will mark Christmas, which will be played in a freezer for the hour of the duel and that could condemn one of the two to a bitter holiday.