Next Saturday, 31st of January 2015, an Atlético Madrid, hurt in their pride, will travel to the Basque Country to measure forces with Eibar, one of the most impressive teams at La Liga so far this season, at Estadio Municipal de Ipurua, for round 21 of the Spanish Liga BBVA, on a match of the utmost importance for Los Colchoneros, who are still trying to digest their midweek defeat against Barcelona.

Losing to Barça two times in just seven days has certainly been a huge blow to the motivation levels of Atlético’s players. The Catalan team has eliminated the Colchoneros from Copa del Rey after winning matches both at Camp Nou and at Vicente Calderon, thus putting an end to Atlético’s dream of winning the competition this season. Last Wednesday’s clash at Madrid was quite a frantic match that ended with an impressive 3-2 win for Barcelona after a superbly well played first-half by both sides. Atlético ended the match with just nine players, after Gabi and Mario Suarez were shown the red card and in a way this allowed Barcelona to control the entire game. The Catalan side enjoyed from an impressive ball possession rate of 75% and had almost the double of goal attempts from their opponents.

As for La Liga, after a solid home win over their neighbours Rayo Vallecano last weekend, Atlético will now have a very tough bone to chew at the Basque Country next Saturday. The match against Eibar will be a very good test to Atlético’s capacity of bouncing back after a negative result such as the one against Barcelona from last Wednesday’s night.

For that predictable complicated clash, Diego “El Cholo” Simeone will not be able to rely on the contribution of Gabi and Mario Suarez, who are suspended, and he is not yet certain if both Tiago and Koke will recover in time for the Ipurua’s match.

As for Eibar, they are by far the most pleasing surprise of the season so far. The La Liga’s newcomers are currently at the 8th place of the table with 27 points from 20 matches and, by now, they have proven to be a complicated opponent to the vast majority of the teams. Last weekend, however, the might Armeros were defeated at Anoeta on the Basque Country against Real Sociedad by 1-0 but such setback is certainly not enough to break the enthusiasm of a mighty and brave group of players that, for example, was only overcame by a narrow goal margin when they visited Vicente Calderon back in August.

Despite their bad week and the subsequent elimination from Copa del Rey, Atlético are still firm favourites to snatch the three points from their visit to Ipurua next Saturday.

Eibar

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-1

Recent Form - LDWWL

Atlético Madrid

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-1

Recent Form - LWLWD

Possible Line-ups

Eibar (4-2-3-1) - Irureta - Bóveda - Anibarro - Abraham - Castellano - Errasti - Garcia - Del Moral - Capa - Arruabarrena - Berjon

Atlético Madrid (4-4-1-1) - Moya - Juanfran - Sequeira - Miranda - Godín - Tiago - Niguez - Griezmann - Raul Garcia - Torres - Mandzukic

Prediction

Eibar 0 Atlético Madrid 1