FC Barcelona would be looking for another efficient perfromance to take them past Valencia into the final of this year's Copa Del Rey Competition.
B arcelona Football Club will be looking to book a place in the fifth consecutive Copa Del Rey final when they face Valencia at the Mestalla Stadium in Valencia tonight. FC Barcelona heads into the second leg with clear advantage of winning the first leg at the Camp Nou. Sevilla, last night booked their place in the final with an aggregate score of 3-1 against Real Madrid killer Leganés. Valverde announced an almost full strength squad to visit Mestalla; the only ones who are missing are Vermaelen and Dembélé due to injury and Denis Suárez and Lucas Digne who are actually left out. The situation with Denis is becoming a concern to me as he is not getting any time and club failed to loan him out also!
Barca has the Advantage going into the Second Leg
FC Barcelona would have hoped for a better cushion going into the game than they currently have. But still the 1-0 victory at the Camp Nou, puts Barca in a pretty decent position in the tie. It's not the 1 goal margin alone which help; it's the lack of away goal for Valencia which will definitely help. That means Valencia have a hell of a task on their hand. Mestalla is never a favourite ground to travel for Barca; but we go into this knowing that we have definite advantage in the tie.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. Thomas Paine
The best case scenario for Valencia is winning the leg 2-0; but then it's easier said than done. No team in the league has managed to stop us from scoring atleast once in the league so far apart from the super cups. Only two teams have managed and they were both in Europe and that were both 0-0 draw. Which means that keeping us away from scoring and scoring themselves is a mean task. Now if Barca scores, then because of the away goal rule Valencia may have to score thrice without conceding another one. Apart from the Super Cup debacle which happened pretty early in the season, Barca has not allowed any team to score more than twice against them!
If Barca decides to sit back on the advantage, then it could be a pretty foolish step. The idea should be to score early and that means we needs to be off the block from the word go. If we score early, that will literally kill Valencia as they will realize the enormity of the task. From the point of results Valencia is in some kind of crisis, where they have lost five matches in a trot in normal time. That should be already playing in their mind.
I don't see Valverde experimenting much in terms of line-up, especially starting Messi and Alba from the bench against Espanyol. We should see a 4-4-2 formation, with Messi and Saurez us the targets man upfront. The midfield should have Paulinho, Rakitic, Iniesta and Busquets. Valverde will go against starting Coutinho as Paulinho will be the much better player at Mestalla. The defense should see Roberto, Pique, Umtiti and Alba. This match could be very tough as Valencia could be looking to salvage something concrete out of their season after starting so well at the start. But Barca should be able to handle that easily from them.
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