Barca and the Yellow Submarine meet in the first leg of their King's Cup semifinal tie.
Barcelona are the heavy favorites to advance to the Copa del Rey final, but they'll face a tough test from a strong Villarreal side that's come close to upsetting the Blaugrana twice this season in league play.
Barca won the first contest back in August 1-0, and took a 3-2 shootout a couple weeks ago, but both games were close and should give Villarreal some confidence. The Yellow Submarine's attack gave Barca a ton of problem in that last match, and with Luis Enrique giving Sergio Busquets a break and putting Javier Mascherano in the deep midfield, it'll be up to Jeremy Mathieu and Gerard Piqué to deal with Villarreal's speed.
Luis Suárez, Neymar and Lionel Messi will all start as Enrique decided to leave his attacking trio together. They're recent form has been a big part of Barca's nine match unbeaten run that's seem them score 34 goals, so Villarreal's defense will have a challenge of their own.
The second leg will be played at Villarreal in March.
Match Date/Time: Wednesday 7 p.m. local, 1 p.m. ET
Venue: Camp Nou, Barcelona Spain
TV: beIN Sports (U.S. - English and Canada), beIN Sports en Español (U.S. - Spanish), Sky Sports 5 (U.K.), Canal+ 1/HD/30 (Spain)
Online: beIN Sports CONNECT (U.S. & Canada), Sky Go (U.K.), Canal+ Yomvi (Spain)
from SBNation.com - All Posts http://ift.tt/1DFZCeo
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment