Next Monday, 25th of August 2014, La Liga’s current champions, Atlético Madrid, will visit the Campo de Fútbol de Vallecas to take on Rayo Vallecano for the opening round of the 2014-15 edition of Liga BBVA.

Atlético Madrid’s first match of the new season will certainly be far from easy. The short trip to Vallecas to face Rayo Vallecano is never easy and if one considers that Los Franjirrojos are a fairly dangerous team when playing at home, the level of difficult certainly increases. The current La Liga champions put up a solid performance last Tuesday night at Santiago Bérnabeu for the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup by granting a 1-1 draw thanks to a late goal from the inevitable Raúl Garcia. Despite the departure of Diego Costa, “El Cholo” Simeone presented his usual 4-4-1-1 formation with Raúl Garcia acting as some sort of trequartista, supporting both the midfield line and Mandzukic, who was the lonely man up in the front. Atlético displayed some quality football, especially during the first-half, and they controlled the match until James Rodríguez scored for Real Madrid on the 81st minute of the match.

Simeone opted for a starting line-up based on last season’s structure and left three of the new signings (Griezmann, Ansaldi and Jimenez) on the bench, and once again he proved his point by restraining the majority of Real Madrid’s attacking movements throughout the match.

For the clash against Rayo next Monday, Simeone will probably implement some changes in his team, thus promoting some rotation right from the beginning of the season. Ansaldi will probably replace Siqueira on the left side of the defence line and Griezmann might take Saul Niguez’ place in the starting line-up, whether by playing in the midfield line or by lurking behind the team’s poacher, as some sort of inside forward or trequartista.

As for Rayo Vallecano, who were one of the most pleasant surprises of last season’s La Liga edition, the team will have a rough test to start this year’s campaign. Paco Jémez lost an important player this Summer, as Larrivey joined Celta de Vigo, but he managed to grant a hand full of quality players, such as Licá, Léo Baptistão, Abdoulaye Ba, Kakuta and Jonathan Pereira, to compensate for such loss.

For the match against the current La Liga champions, Paco Jémez will certainly use his team’s deadly counter-attacks movements to try to upset a rock solid defence line such as the one from Atlético Madrid.

When both teams met at Vallecas last season, the visitors dominated the match and won by 4-2. For next Monday’s clash, Atlético Madrid have to be considered favourites, but they cannot lower their guard if they want to claim the three points.

Rayo Vallecano

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - LDDWL

Atlético Madrid

Stats: W-3 L-0 D-2

Recent Form - DWWWD

Possible Line-ups

Rayo Vallecano (4-3-3) - Cobeño - Tito - Zé Castro - Abdoulaye Ba - Nacho - Aquino - Trashorras - Baena - Licá - Leo Baptistão - Jonathan Pereira

Atlético Madrid (4-4-1-1) - Moya - Juanfran - Miranda - Godín - Ansaldi - Mario Suárez - Gabi - Koke - Griezmann - Raúl Garcia - Mandzukic

Prediction

Rayo Vallecano 1 Atlético Madrid 2