Atletico vs. Barcelona PREDICTIONS 🍿 Can Atleti pull off the upset? | ESPN FC

which of those teams have Barcelona not put four goals passed even just last season? even real Madrid have swallowed five from Barcelona so not doing it this season doesn't change anything. how often has real madrid been able to defeat Barcelona with 4 to 5 goals?

Hey fellas Rodri is a world class player but let's relax with the Barca in peril talks because he's injured. Barca never needed Rodri for La Liga. This is a side that won 5 trophies w/o Rodri 2 of them back 2 back La Liga titles. The copa del ray stuff and UCL Simeone got the best of Flick largely because he sand bagged his La Liga matches while Barca was in the title race with Madrid and had a deep squad. Up until this season Flick had a thin squad so the Pedri and Raphinha injuries hurt the quality as a whole. However Cholo has only beat Flick once in La Liga and that's home and away.

Wow really....Hansi Flick's Barcelona has come up against Cholo de Madrid 10 times. 6 W 1 D 3 L.....so not sure 1 seasons results can be used as the 'definitive' measuring stick. Well see if patetico can do it this year and next to even the head to head to 6 W each.

In a knockout stage of CL or Copa I goAtleti all the way... Cholo knows how to get his players and even the crowd in the right mind set and exploit Flick's high line (and Barca players know this). A La Liga game however I think Barca will unfortunately make short work of us.

The issue few are talking about is that Jonathan David should be starting over Alvarez... when JD was starting Athletico was winning...and he was one of the pivotal players in winning against Real Madrid... the stats do not lie, David has outperformed Alvarez in every single metric including defense and tackles and team just looks way better when David is starting...Simeone overruled by the Athleti board however because team run like a stock portfolio and they have to protect the value of Alvarez by starting him even if underperforming... the reality is that as soon as he said he wanted to leave he was never the same after...Pep Guardiola and Tony Bloom always said if a player wants to leave, let him go...if Alvarez keeps on underperforming and you leave a player in form like David on the bench it won't go well...

Frenkie de Jong was not out of favour, he was injured. Him and Pedri will be fine as they have been in recent seasons. Rodri came in for the big games, but was not great in the two big games, so at this point you cannot say they need him in the big games. He honestly looks a bit like an old man when the pace is a lot higher than it was for Spain at the WC.