La Liga 2014-15 | ||
Levante UD |
vs | FC Barcelona |
ScheduleSunday, 21 September 2014 at 19:00 GMT / 20:00 UK / 00:30 IST VenueEstadio Ciutat de Valencia (Valencia) |
Next Sunday, 21st of September 2014, Barcelona will travel to the Comunidad Valenciana to go head-to-head with Levante at Estadio Ciutat de Valencia for round four of the Spanish Liga BBVA.
Barcelona didn’t have the best of times on Luis Enrique’s debut at the UEFA Champions League as they struggled to defeat a fairly more modest APOEL side. The Cyprus team showed they were no pushovers, as they tried for several times to look Barcelona right in the eye, something that has somehow disturbed the Catalan team. Barça won the match by 1-0 thanks to a goal from Piqué, who has recently returned from injury, scored during the first-half, and although they were always the most dangerous team in the match, they were forced to do some extra work in order to save their narrow and unconvincing win.
Last Wednesday’s Barcelona was nothing but a shadow of the team that defeated Athletic Bilbao during the weekend and their performance was most certainly the worst they’ve had in official matches so far this season.
Luis Enrique operated several changes in his team to receive APOEL, giving some time of play to young players such as Samper, Roberto and El Haddadi, but not even that apologizes for the poor display of the Catalan team.
For their trip to the Comunidad Valenciana next Sunday, the Asturian manager will still not be able to count on Luis Suárez, who is suspended, and he is not yet certain if Dani Alves and Vermaelen will recover in time of the clash.
As for Levante, they did not start the season off as their supporters were certainly expecting since they are occupying the last place of the table after three league matches. Les Granotes have been going through a fairly negative moment and they have not yet scored a single goal at La Liga this season. After being hammered 3-0 at the Cathedral San Mamés three weeks ago, Levante managed to somehow bounce back and grabbed an important draw on their travel to Málaga last week. The team’s new manager, José Luis Mendilibar, is not having the best of times as Levante seem to have resented the departure of Joaquin Caparrós and the methodologies he implement at the team.
When both sides met at Estadio Ciutat de Valencia last term, the match was for theCopa del Rey competition and the Blaugranas smashed their opponents by a staggering 4-1. Judging by Levante’s current moment, next Sunday’s match may have a similar outcome.
Levante
Stats: W-0 L-3 D-2
Recent Form - DLLDL
Barcelona
Stats: W-5 L-0 D-0
Recent Form - WWWWW
Possible Line-ups
Levante (4-2-3-1) - Jesus - López - Camarasa - Vyntra - Toño - Simao - Sissoko - Xumetra - Pérez - Morales - Rafael Martins
Barcelona (4-3-3) - Bravo - Dani Alves - Piqué - Mathieu - Jordi Alba - Busquets - Iniesta - Rakitic - Rafinha - Munir - Messi
Prediction
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