Copa Del Rey Quarter Final : Barcelona Vs Athletic Club Match Preview, Team News, Live Info

Barcelona Vs Athletic Club
SCHEDULE	TIME
MATCH :	Barcelona V/s. Athletic Club (Copa Del Rey)
DATE:	07-02-2020
TIME :	1.30 AM IST (UTC +5:30)
STADIUM:	San Mames

Full Time
BARCELONA [0] - [1] ATHLETIC CLUB

Lineup	Barcelona
Barcelona XI: Ter Stegen; Semedo, Pique, Lenglet, Jordi Alba; Busquets, De Jong, Rakitic; Sergi Roberto, Messi, Fati.
Lineup	Athletic Club
Athletic Club XI: Unai Simón; Capa, Yeray Álvarez, Unai Núñez, Íñigo Martínez, Yuri Berchiche; Dani García, Vesga, Raúl García, Muniain; Iñaki Williams.

Match Preview

It has been another very eventful week in the circus that is FC Barcelona with Leo Messi making a rare public statement to disagree with the views expressed by sporting director Eric Abidal in a recent interview. It’s beneath that storm that Barça head to San Mames for a really tough Copa del Rey Quarter-Final against Athletic Club this Thursday.

Gaizka Garitano’s Athletic have already defeated Barcelona this season on this ground. The very first match of the 2019/20 season was settled by a brilliant late goal from Aritz Aduriz. While the veteran forward has seldom featured since, Athletic remain a tough nut to crack on their own patch. Prior to Sunday’s game with Getafe, they’d only lost one home league game in over a year since Garitano’s appointment but a 2-0 defeat to the South Madrid side does send them into this match on a bit of a sour note.

Barcelona meanwhile have won 4 of their 5 matches since appointing Quique Setien. That certainly doesn’t tell the whole story though with a series of unconvincing performances in games the Catalans would have expected to win comfortably. This game, as well as Sunday’s trip to Betis in La Liga, should shed more light on whether Barcelona are starting to adapt to Setien’s ideas.

Lionel Messi is somebody who is far more used to doing his talking on the pitch and it would be no surprise if he came up with a big performance here on the back of what has happened this week. However a packed San Mames is more than capable of making this loud and hostile and Barcelona will be well aware that they will need to up their recent level if they are going to get through this tie.

Team News And Statistics

BARCELONA

The Blaugrana find their already small squad hit hard by injuries in key areas. Back-up goalkeeper Neto is injured, and he is joined by long-term attacking absentees Luis Suárez and Ousmane Dembélé; neither man is expected to play again until perhaps the very end of the season.

Predicted XI :Ter Stegen; Semedo, Piqué, Umtiti, Alba; Busquets, De Jong, Arthur; Messi, Ansu Fati, Griezmann.

ATHLETIC CLUB

Athletic’s usual cup keeper Iago Herrerin is suspended following his red card against Tenerife, so you can expect to see regular shot-stopper Unai Simon in goal as the Blaugrana come to town. Oscar de Marcos is also a long-term injury absence but besides that Athletic should have everyone available for this key clash.

Predicted XI : Unai Simon; Capa, Yeray, Martinez, Berchiche; Dani Garcia, Unai Lopez; Williams, Raul Garcia, Muniain, Villalibre.

Sports Track Score Prediction

BARCELONA [ 2 ] - [ 1 ] ATHLETIC CLUB

Recent H2H Matches
BARCELONA	ATHLETIC CLUB
PLAYED : 54 WON : 35 LOSS : 7 DRAW : 12	PLAYED : 54 WON : 7 LOSS : 35 DRAW : 12