Barcelona’s return to La Liga play on
Saturday afternoon against newly promoted Real Valladolid will be an attempt to make it four wins from four games this season.
Real Valladolid are in 11th place after taking four points from their first three games of the 2024-25 season, while Hansi Flick’s team leads the table with nine points from their first three games.
It was unexpected when Xavi left Barcelona as head coach at the end of the last campaign, and there is a lot of expectation on new boss Flick to challenge Real Madrid for the championship this year.
All things considered, Flick’s reign has gotten off to an extremely impressive start.
The German has handled a number of off-the-field issues admirably, and he has led the team to three straight La Liga victories over Athletic Bilbao, Rayo Vallecano, and Valencia, collecting nine of the possible nine points.
In two of those three matches, Barcelona has had to fight back from behind. In their most recent match against Rayo Vallecano, for example, Pedri tied the score on the hour, and Dani Olmo sealed the victory in the 82nd minute of the match in Madrid.
Even with their injury issues, Barcelona has had an excellent start to the season and will be hoping to finish first in the standings with 12 points from four games come September’s international break. There is still an awful lot of football left to play.
With Pau Victor and Olmo joining, the team has only signed two players thus far this summer. However, movement is anticipated in the final phases of the transfer window, as the team is expected to recruit a new midfield player after Marc Bernal’s major knee injury sidelines him for the remainder of the campaign.
Real Valladolid, on the other hand, may also be happy with their season debut after gaining four points from their first three games, good for eleventh place in the standings.
Bernal is the most recent of Barcelona’s seven players who are not eligible for selection; the 17-year-old’s ACL injury was verified on Wednesday, and he will now have surgery.
For Barcelona, Christensen, Eric, Ansu Fati, Araujo, Frenkie de Jong, and Gavi are all absent, therefore Flick’s choices for making changes are now restricted.
But after seeing the Spaniard play off the bench against Vallecano, the head coach will be able to give Olmo his full debut. In addition, there may be two more changes made to the team that played at the start of the last game: Lopez will likely replace the injured Bernal, and Martin should be replaced by Balde at the back.
Anuar Tuhami is still not eligible for selection for Real Valladolid, but other than that, the visitors are in great form for this weekend’s match.
After coming off the bench against
Leganes, Juanmi Latasa -who joined from Real Madrid during the summer- is eager to be started, but he may need to exercise patience.
Read Also: Dani Olmo Biography