Sevilla vs Barcelona Prediction - A Tough Bone For Barça To Chew

Next Saturday, 11th of April 2015, an hyper moralized Barcelona will travel to Andalusia to measure forces with Sevilla at the emblematic Estadio Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan for round 31 of the Spanish Liga BBVA.

Barcelona continued with their fantastic streak when they hosted Almeria last Wednesday. Luis Enrique’s boys sealed the 24th win of the season thanks to another excellent performance by the erratic Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez, who scored twice against the Andalusian team at Camp Nou. Barça’s Asturian manager implemented some changes in the team’s lineup against Almeria by giving some more playing time to young players, such as the centre back Marc Bartra and the talented deep-lying playmaker Sergi Roberto.

The unpredictable home defeat against Málaga in the end of February was an excellent eye opener for the Catalan team, who from that moment on embarked on a fantastic streak of seven consecutive wins for La Liga and two for the UEFA Champions League.

The weekend’s upcoming clash against Sevilla will surely be a very complicated one for Leo Messi and his pairs. The Andalusia team are a particularly complicated side, especially when playing at home and they will certainly do everything within their reach to cause the Catalans a major upset.

As for Sevilla, the current UEFA Europa League holders are still dreaming to grant a place at the Champions League next season and, in order to achieve such thing, a win against Barcelona is almost mandatory. Unai Emery boys also haven’t lost for La Liga since February, when they sucumbed at Anoeta against Real Sociedad and they will surely put Barcelona through hell next Saturday’s evening.

Last Tuesday’s night Sevilla granted an important 2-1 win against Levante, something that allowed them to close the gap to Valencia to just one point. A goal from Kevin Gameiro and another one from Jose Antonio Reyes were enough to defeat the Comunidad Valenciana team and to throw them into a dangerous place of the league table, extremely close to the relegation zone.

Despite of Sevilla’s overall quality, Barcelona are firm favourites to win next Saturday’s important match.

Sevilla

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - WWLWW

Barcelona

Stats: W-5 L-0 D-0

Recent Form - WWWWW

Possible Line-ups

Sevilla (4-2-3-1) - Rico - Figueiras - Pareja - Kolodziejczak - Navarro - Carriço - Krychowiak - Reyes - Iborra -Vitolo - Bacca

Barcelona (4-3-3) - Bravo - Alves - Mathieu - Piqué - Adriano - Busquets - Iniesta - Rakitic - Neymar - Suárez - Messi

Injury List / Suspended Players

Sevilla

Beto (inj)

Stephane M’bia (inj)

Sebastian Cristoforo (inj)

Mariano Barbosa (inj)

Barcelona

Jordi Alba (inj)

Vermaelen (inj)

Head-to-head matches:

Top Players:

Sevilla

Carlos Bacca

Kevin Gameiro

Daniel Carriço

Barcelona

Lionel Messi

Luis Suarez

Neymar

Predictable Goal Scorers:

Sevilla

1. Carlos Bacca
2. Kevin Gameiro
3. Jose Antonio Reyes

Barcelona

1. Lionel Messi
2. Luis Suarez
3. Neymar

Half-Time Score

Sevilla 0 Barcelona 1

Full-Time Score

Sevilla 1 Barcelona 2