The forthcoming Thursday isn’t rich on football events and the most notable match of the day will be an encounter between Athletic and Barcelona within the round of 16 of the Spanish Cup. Barcelona come as clear favorites in the encounter, however, one should not forget, that the Basques are a very home team. The last thesis is especially actual for cup matches, where the role of the field factor is maximum.
Athletic had two matches at home before the Christmas break, in which they got two victories over Celta and Racing. These two teams cannot be compared to Barcelona, but the results tell us, that the team from Bilbao is in a great shape. The statistics of Athletic’s home matches in Primera can also be brought up. In eight games, the Basques had six wins with one tie and one defeat.
But Barcelona show a very decent level of football this season as well. The Catalonians have had eight matches outside their native walls in the tournament table of the Spanish Primera, in which they had six victories with one draw and one loss, Blaugranas scored 23 goals and conceded only 9 in the games. Generally, Luis Enrique’s team is on the second position after 16 rounds of the Spanish championship, falling behind Real Madrid by three points.
Barcelona are very active in the away encounters, but Athletic lose at their home ground extremely rarely. Besides, there was a Christmas break and it isn’t clear in what shape Barca is.
Prediction for the match: Athletic to win with +1.5 Asian handicap.
