FC Barcelona vs Valencia Preview

With Fc Barcelona's prolific scoring machine, Samuel Eto missing in the game, every fan will be looking upto Lionnel Messi to churn up another magical performance to see them past Valencia. Valencia is in the midst of a financial trouble but that would be the last thing that would be on the mind of their players. Valencia visits Camp Nou this night lying in third in the standings with a five points difference seperating them. Valencia would be hoping to cut down the lead whereas FC Barcelona would be aspiring to repeat last week's performance and move further away from contenders. Valencia's away form has been good this season, they are yet to be beaten away from the home. FC Barcelona's home form has not been that good as their away form. In the past thsi fixture has yielded some great games. Guardiola has been very cautious and has restrained from naming the squad early. Eric Abidal has been given the green light but the chances of Guardiola starting with him is very unlikely. The key would be how he will for the front line up. Bojan and Hleb are contenders for that fron line-up and it is yet to see whom he will prefer.

Guardiola is certain to start with Valdes in the Goal. Valdes has some nightmarish experience against Villa in the past. Hope he does not repeat any of them. The defense should remain unchanged with a combination of Alves, Pique, Marquez and Puyol. The midfield would ideally feature two attacking players in the form of Gudjonsen and Xavi along with the the big Ivorian Yaya Toure. The forward line up would be made up of Messi, Henry and Hleb. I would love to see Bojan in the Centre role but that seems very unlikely. Valencia has some great players in their squad, they would be missing the likes of Edu and David Silva, a player in which the Catalan's are interested; then there is the prolific scorer David Villa, Marquez and Pique would have a tough time to deal with him and then there is Joaquin. Even then the home advantage of FC Barcelona should come to their rescue and they should atleast score three goals.

Will the crisis at Valencia benefit Barca?

La Liga is indeed a strange place, there would be no shortage of stories in this great footballing arena. End of last week the entire media was concentrating on the immediate signing of Huntelaar by Real Madrid. Now it's Valencia's turn to be in the headlines. After a rather disastrous last season, it appeared that Valencia has finally turn things around with the team in contention for the title; or simply put Valencia got back to where they belong to. Now it looks like the hapiness of turning around the perforance would be over-shadowed by another bigger crisis they have to face. Valencia is reported to be in a midst of a Financial meltdown and there are huge rumours about the club going bankrupt. The report also suggest that they might be struggling to pay their player's wages and have to pay back a huge 50 million Euros by the year end. At the time their looks like some hopes are left for Valencia with their President assuring that a back up startegy is in place.

Valencia is the third most famous La Liga club after Real Madird and FC Barcelona. That makes the club too important to fail. In the summer there were rumours about the financial difficulties and everyone expected them to off load atleast two of their start players. Now if they fail to avert this crisis they would have to sell these stars for a much lesser price. This is where FC Barcelona would come to benefit from it. FC Barcelona have made it known about their intention to sign David Silva last summer. Now this presence an ideal oppurtunity for them to go for the player. In a survey conducted by Mundo Deportivo a whooping 83% of people has voted in favour of Barcelona takling steps to benefit from this financial crisis by signing Silva. But interms of the La Liga's future the failing of such a club would be disastrous; nor does the weekening of Valencia ahead of January transfer market. They are a real title contender this season and this crisis comes at the most disturbing time with Valencia taking on FC Barcelona at Camp Nou this weekend. One can only pray that they are able to come out of this crisis properly. Already there is a situation developing with David Villa - it seems Manchester City, Chelsea and Madrid all are interested.

FC Barcelona to meet Athletico Madrid

FC Barcelona has been given the tough task of dealing with Athletico Madrid in the pre-quarter stage of Copa Del Rey. The draw was made yesterday and the ther matches are Poli Ejido v Espanyol , Racing Santander v Valencia , Sporting Gijón v Valladolid , Real Unión v Betis , Sevilla v Deportivo , Osasuna v Athletic Bilbao and Mallorca v Almería. FC Barcelona have already met Athletico Madrid once this season and that ended in a 6-0 thrashing of the visitors at Camp Nou. FC Barcelona is scheduled to play the first leg at Vicente Calderon stadium on January 7th with the return game at Camp Nou on January 14th. The second leg being at home should seriously put Barca in the driver seat.

The quarter-final and semi-final draw has also been made and if Barca proceed they would meat the winner of the match between Poli Ejido and Espanyol. The winner of that match would be facing anyone of Real Union, Betis, Mallorca and Almeria.