D1 - Football - Spain - La Liga

Spanish League

Almeria vs. Malaga

Almería is sitting thirteenth. They played an amazing match against Barcelona last week where they could have won if it wasn’t because Barça’s Messi was inspired that night and managed to scratch one point from Almeria. This team plays very well at home and I’m quite sure that if they play like they did against Malaga they can win the match. They will count with all their main players for this match.

Malaga is sitting fifteenth. They have lost a match that was supposed to be easy for them against Xerez. Actually they were winning the match by 2-1 with one Xerez player sent off until Malaga’s best player Duda was sent off too and then the rest of the three Xerez goals came right after ending the match in a very shocking 2-4 defeat at home against the worst team in la Liga. As you can see midfielder Duda is essential in this team and without him Malaga reduces their performance quite drastically. Apart from him other 6 players are doubtful for this match which includes key defender Stepanov.

Almeria is in a great moment and in very good shape lately. They almost managed to beat Barça. Malaga will miss their most important player and will have much more problems then usual.

Almeria should take the three points at home.

Record Date : 12/03/2010 18:06

D1 - Football - Spain - La Liga

Spanish League

Villarreal vs. Xerez

Villarreal is eighth at eight points from European spots. Although the distance is very far they still have hopes of making it to at least sixth spot by the end of the year. But for that they must win this type of matches against weaker teams. Last match they drew Espanyol away 0-0 in a match where the most incredible thing is that no goals were scored because both teams had an incredible amount of clear chances. Villarreal is an all-out attacking team and usually scores lots a good amount of goals and I think that against Xerez they will not miss that many clear chances.

Xerez achieved their very first away victoryin the whole season last match against Malaga by 4-2. They were very lucky that Malaga messed up and lost one of their best players Duda to a red card. Xerez took advantage of that situation. I doubt that they will win again or even draw as they are clearly a much worse team than Villarreal. Out of 12 away matches they’ve lost 8 matches so we can see how bad they are.

Villarreal is way too superior and should win this by a huge goal margin. Villarreal -1. 25 AH @ 1. 86 looks great.

Record Date : 12/03/2010 18:24

D1 - Football - Spain - La Liga

Spanish League

Barcelona vs. Valencia

Barcelona lost the leadership last week with their surprising draw against Almeria. Maybe it wasn’t that much of a surprise as their performance hasn’t been all that good lately even in their last victories. They have problems scoring goals as they seem very dependent on Messi to do the job of scoring goals. And to make things worse striker Ibrahimovich is banned for this match and also manager Guardiola will be sitting far from the bench due to ban as well. Ibra hasn’t been scoring much lately but he has been creating many chances for Messi as well and is very useful for this team so I rate this news as a big blow.

Valencia is sitting third very far from Barça so the objective is to stay third by the end of the season and for that they need to be better than all the teams behind them. It looks like Valencia will receive a huge blow with the injury from last Europa League match of striker David Villa who is the main danger-man. Without him Valencia lose quite a lot of firepower upfront as he is the top scorer of the league and they depend on him quite a lot.

Barça needs to win this against a Valencia who usually defends really well far from home and is a hard nut to crack. Without Ibrahimovic and the dependency on Messi to do the job of scoring goals I think that it won’t be a high scoring game. Especially when the league’s top scorer David Villa is not on the field for Valencia making this team quite harmless and less dangerous.

I think that this match will go UNDER 3. 00 GOAL-LINE @ 1. 95 looks great.

Record Date : 12/03/2010 18:40

D1 - Football - Spain - La Liga

Spanish League

Valladolid vs. Real Madrid

Real Madrid received their biggest blow this season after being knocked out of CL. This team once again failed to do their work correctly under the spotlight. Although I’m sure that if you have seen the match against Lyon you would agree with me that Real Madrid deserved much more. The first 40 minutes was one of the best Real Madrid’s this season where they missed a huge amount of big and easy chances including an incredible open-goal miss by Higuain. When the first half ended, Real Madrid could have been up 4-0 easily. The second half we can say that Lyon manager was smarter than Real Madrid’s manager Pellegrini putting in more midfielders to create traffic. As the time passed Real Madrid players fell into the trap of doing everything by themselves and the team paid a very high price for this excessive individuality from their stars. We can consider this year as a year of failure once more because it is obvious that we expect more from a team that spent 250 million Euros on summer. But I believe that this is why they will return to their winning ways against Valladolid as it is the only thing they have left and will definitely hold on to it as if it was matter of life or death. They will be counting with all their stars once more and this is a great moment for them to heal their wounds and rebuild confidence.

Valladolid is clearly one of the worst teams in La Liga. Not a single victory in at least the last 10 matches which is quite a worrying fact for them. I think that they will surely fall into the hypnotizing effect of seeing football stars in front of them just like when Barça visited them and won 0-3 with excessive easiness. There is not much to add to this team for this match.

Real Madrid so far is the most solid team in league and probably the most convinced of winning this title as they have been week after week winning matches in the cat and mouse game in order to catch Barça and will surely defend their leadership with everything they have left. This year is already a failure for them but they will be much happier if Barça ends with nothing this year and for that they need to make sure they win this league. Lyon exposed their weakness this week but for that it required a huge amount of teamwork, skill, patience and luck. Valladolid is too weak to surprise Real Madrid.

Real Madrid should win this easily by at least a 2 goal margin. Real Madrid -1. 50 AH @ 1. 92 looks great.

Record Date : 12/03/2010 19:18