Pre Match : FC Barcelona vs Villarreal Preview, Team News, lineups
December 14, 2013 7:00 PM GMT
Camp Nou — Barcelona
Referee: Ignacio Iglesias
After suffering their first league loss of the season in La Liga, Catalan club needs to win this game to maintain league’s top spot. Namely, Athletic Bilbao manage to take all three points at home against Barca, and this setback has allowed two chasing clubs from Madrid to cut the gap. Barcelona will be still without Messi and Valdes due to injuries, so the key player for the Catalans probably would be a hat-trick hero from Champions league match against Celtic, Neymar.
Host, Villarreal sitting currently on the fifth place, and they are on run of five games without a loss. Three draws and two wins, but what’s interesting is that both of them were on tour.
Joint Spanish league leaders Barcelona prepared on Friday (13 December) for their La Liga match against Villarreal, which kicks off on Saturday (December 14).
Team Probable lineups
Barcelona : Pinto – Montoya, Pique, Mascherano, Jordi Alba – Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta – A.Sanchez, Neymar, Pedro
Villareal : S.Asenjo – Mario, Musacchio, Gabriel Paulista, Jaume Costa – Aquino, Pina, Trigueros – Soriano, Cani – dos Santos