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Espanyol (5-9-20) at Barcelona (22-7-5)
La Liga Soccer: Wednesday July 1, 2020 at 4:00 PM (Camp Nou)
The Line: Barcelona -700 / Draw +700 / Espanyol +2000 -- O/U: 3 Click Here for the Latest Odds
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Barcelona plays host to Espanyol in La Liga soccer action from Camp Nou on Wednesday afternoon.
Barcelona comes into this match in 2nd place on 73 points, four points behind league-leading Real Madrid with a record of 22 wins, 7 draws and 5 losses after a 4-1 win over Villarreal in their last game. In the win over Villarreal, Barca took the lead just three minutes in thanks to a Villarreal own goal. Villarreal would tie the game at one in the 14th but Luis Suarez would restore Barcelona’s lead just six minutes later. Antoine Griezmann pushed Barca’s lead to 3-1 in the 45th minute and Barcelona thought they had a 4th goal in the 69th minute, but VAR would overturn Lionel Messi’s goal after determining an offside play in the buildup to the goal. Ansu Fati would put in the 4th goal for Barcelona in the 86th minute, securing the win for Barcelona at full time. Lionel Messi leads Barcelona in scoring and assists with 22 goals and 19 assists while Suarez has 14 goals and 8 assists this season. Marc-Andre Ter-Stegen is Barcelona’s top goalkeeper, conceding 0.94 goals per 90 minutes with 12 clean sheets in 33 league appearances this season.
Espanyol on the other hand, come into this one in last place on 24 points with a record of 5 wins, 9 draws and 20 losses after a 5th straight loss in the form of a 1-0 loss to Leganes last time out. The first half saw no scoring and only one booking, and Leganes would take the lead in the 53rd minute. Despite Espanyol holding a 66% possession edge in the second half and 63% in the match, Espanyol wouldn’t be able to find an equalizing goal as Leganes held on for the win. David Lopez, Wu Lei and Raul de Tomas are tied for the team lead with 4 goals apiece while Adrian Embarba leads Espanyol in assists with 4 assists this season. Diego Lopez is Espanyol’s top goalkeeper, conceding 1.52 goals per 90 minutes with 4 clean sheets in 33 league appearances this season.
You could make a case for Espanyol with a +1 or so handicap as their last four losses have come by one goal, including three separate 1-0 losses with one coming to league leaders Real Madrid. Barcelona’s also dropped points regularly since the restart with three draws in their last five matches. However, while there are still rumors of dissention between Messi and the Barcelona board, Barca showed up in a big way to silence the critics against Villarreal and I think Barcelona knows that they can ill afford to drop points the rest of the way if they’re going to make a late push to catch Real Madrid. Teams may have changed over the years, but Barcelona has won ten straight head-to-head games against Espanyol at home with the combined scoreline of 33-2. I think we could be in for another sizeable win for the Blaugrana, so I’ll side with Barcelona to pick up the win to nil
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Chris’s Pick Barcelona win to nil -135
AUTHOR: Chris Ruffolo
Mitch's Take...
