Athletic Bilbao vs Atlético Madrid Prediction, Betting Tips & Preview

Preview

Joel Amorim Apr 18, 2016 @ 01:03 am

Next Wednesday, 20th of April 2016, the title contenders Atlético Madrid will visit the Basque Country to measure forces with Athletic Bilbao at San Mamés for Round 34 of the Spanish Liga BBVA.

After their midweek impressive win over Barcelona on the second-leg of the UEFA Champions League Quarter-finals, Atlético Madrid put up another solid performance against Granada last Sunday at Estadio Vicente Calderón. The match started at a slow pace, but after Koke opened the score with his 5th goal of the season, things definitely changed. Atlético lowered their guard and Granada had two good chances to level the score. In one of them, Rochina hit the post with a superb scorcher from outside the box. After the break, however, Los Colchoneros pulled rank and cemented their win with two more goals, the first one by Fernando “El Niño” Torres, who is going through an excellent moment, and the last one by Ángel Correa, who sent home an assist by Saul Niguez to sentence the match.

For the upcoming traditionally complicated visit to San Mamés, Diego Pablo Simeone will not be able to rely on the services of his team’s captain, Gabi, who picked up his 5th yellow card of the season last time out. Tiago and Giménez will also miss out there due to injury.

As for Athletic Bilbao, after being eliminated from the UEFA Europa League by Sevilla later last week, the Basque team put up a solid overall performance to claw the three points against Málaga last Sunday morning. It wasn’t, nevertheless, an easy match for Athletic, who struggle to counter the home side attacking football, especially during the first-half. After the break, the Basque team was clinical up front and netted the only goal of the match when Raúl Garcia headed home Iturraspe’s corner kick. Málaga piled on the pressure after the goal, but Athletic managed to counter the Andalusia team’s intents, thus clawing their 16th win of the season.

For next Wednesday’s difficult match against Atlético Madrid, Ernesto Valverde is not yet certain if he will be able to rely on the services of Aduriz and Williams, who missed last weekend’s match due to injury. Sabin Merino and Laporte will miss out there due to long term injuries.

Athletic

Stats: W-3 L-1 D-1

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Atlético Madrid

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - WWWLW

Possible Line-ups

Athletic (4-2-3-1) - Iraizoz - De Marcos - Gurpegi - San José - Balenziaga - Beñat - Iturraspe - Muniain - Raúl Garcia - Susaeta - Viguera

Atlético Madrid (4-4-2) - Oblak - Juanfran - Filipe Luis - Godín - Savic - Koke - Augusto Fernández - Niguez - Carrasco - Griezmann - Fernando Torres

Injury List / Suspended Players

Athletic - Laporte (inj) - Merino (inj) - Aduriz (in doubt) - Williams (in doubt)

Atlético Madrid - Tiago (inj) - Gabi (sus) - Gimenez (inj)

Head-to-head matches:

League Positions