Villareal vs Barcelona

Barcelona had pretty disappointing last season and the negative spiral escalated to an ultra embarrassing 2-8 loss to Bayern Munich in the Champions League. During the season break there was a lot of speculation on Lionel Messi possibly leaving the team, mostly because of his differences with Barcelona now ex-president Josep Maria Bartomeu. And soon one of Messi's best friends both on the pitch and in private life Luis Suarez left the team to join main rivals Atletico Madrid. As expected Barcelona's season 2020-2021 started with pretty lame results and some players, even Messi seemed to be lacking some motivation and true willingness to fight for the team. Indeed, there were a lot of question marks over the team and winning the La Liga not to mention The Champions League was only a distant dream..

As the La Liga season went on Atletico Madrid took a what seemed to be a comfortable lead in the table and the two "giants" Real Madrid and Barcelona were trailing by a big number of points. However, advanced statistics clearly showed Atletico were not as good as it seemed taking a look at the standings. At the moment they have some 10 points more than they should have earned based on expected goals/points whereas Barcelona have been slightly unlucky and should have a few more points in the bank. It was always clear Barcelona have a lot more raw class and potential and they questions during the difficult times early season always when will Barcelona start playing the way they can. In March Joan Laporta was elected as Barcelona president for the second time - something Messi, still the most important player in the team liked a lot. The atmosphere around the team was now clearly better than it has been for atleast a year. Even before the FC Barcelona presidential election Barca started to improve both their play and the number of points earned per game on average. At the moment the fight for the championship is tight between Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Barcelona and I am expecting to see an extremely motivated Barcelona on Sunday. They were beaten by PSG in the Champions League some weeks ago so they can fully concentrate on the Liga and winning it is the ultimate goal for the rest of the season 2020-2021. Barcelona did lose to Real Madrid in El Clasico a few weeks ago but actually played well and would have deserved a point. They were not that bad versus PSG either despite they clear aggregate score. We must remember later on PSG went to beat Bayern Munchen and Real Madrid are a Word-Class team. These losses probably affect the odds here pretty much offering a good betting opportunity for us! Overall Barcelona have been playing well for several months now, especially in The La Liga.

How about their opponents Villareal then? They have been in decline lately. Their European qualification bid is faltering as they have lost two of the three latest La Liga matches. Their performance in the match they won was pretty mediocre. I don't put too much emphasis on long-term historical statistics but let's remember Villareal haven't beaten Barcelona in a competitive match since the spring of 2008! They are rarely able to upset the best teams in the league. To sum up, Barcelona's current form and especially raw class should be too much for Villareal to handle this Sunday. The motivated giants of World football Barcelona have some 67-68% chance of winning this one.