Next Saturday, 24th of January 2015, an Atlético Madrid hurting in their pride will entertain their city neighbours of Rayo Vallecano at Vicente Calderón for round 20 of the Liga BBVA, on a match that the current Spanish champions need to win in order to keep nurturing their dream of winning La Liga for the second time in a row.

The new year brought on a very complicated series of clashes for Atlético Madrid, but despite having lost twice for different competitions to Barcelona, it is fair to say that they have managed to overcome the adversities caused by such demanding matches. Los Colchoneros eliminated their neighbours and rivals of Real Madrid from Copa del Rey without losing any of the two matches but they weren’t able to upset to Barcelona on the first leg of the competition’s quarter-finals. Diego Simeone’s men had several opportunities to score but the Catalan team ended up by deserving to win the match. A lonely goal by the usual suspect, Lionel Messi, after Oblak stopped his penalty kick, was enough to give Barça a narrow but important advantage for the second leg match.

Concerning La Liga, Atlético Madrid managed to win their last weekend’s home match against the frail Granada by 2-0 but it wasn’t an easy match by any means. The Colchoneros’ upcoming match will also certainly not be an easy one, especially if we have in mind what happened at Vallecas back in August, when Atlético were forced to hard work in order to secure a draw at least. For the clash against Rayo, Diego “El Cholo” Simeone will not be able to rely on the contribution of the Uruguayan centre back Diego Godin, who is suspended, and he is also not certain if both Tiago and Ansaldi will recover in time from their respective injuries.

As for Rayo, the team from the outskirts of Madrid are certainly motivated after their important win at Anoeta last Friday. Paco Jemez’s boys secured a very important win against Real Sociedad that somehow helped them to restore some of their motivation levels, which had been severely pinched after their home defeat against Córdoba.

Rayo have been fairly inconsistent so far this season, nevertheless, they currently occupy the 10th place of La Liga’s table with 23 points from 19 matches. The upcoming clash at Vicente Calderón will definitely not be an easy one and, for that match, Paco Jemez will not be able to rely on Quini, who is suspended, and he is not yet certain if the Brazilian striker Leo Baptistao will recover from his injury in time for the clash.

Despite of Rayo’s excellent win last round, Atlético Madrid are firm favourites to win the upcoming match.

Atlético Madrid

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-1

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Rayo Vallecano

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-1

Recent Form - WLWLD

Possible Line-ups

Atlético Madrid (4-4-1-1) - Moya - Juanfran - Sequeira - Miranda - Gimenez - Suarez - Gabi - Turan - Koke - Torres - Mandzukic

Rayo Vallecano (4-2-3-1) - Toño - Tito - Zé Castro - Abdoulaye Ba - Insua - Baena - Trashorras - Kakuta - Licá - Bueno - Manucho

Prediction

Atlético Madrid 2 Rayo Vallecano 0