An in-form Barça travel to Andalusia looking to finally break an unlikely streak against the worst team in the league
Cádiz CF (20th, 0pts) vs FC Barcelona (2nd, 10pts)*
*Points and positions at the time of writing on Friday
Competition/Round: 2022-23 La Liga, Matchday 5
Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Sergi Roberto (out)
Cádiz Outs & Doubts: Rubén Alcaraz (out), Awer Mabil (doubt)
Date/Time: Saturday, September 10, 2022, 6.30pm CET (Barcelona), 5.30pm BST/WAT (UK & Nigeria), 12.30pm ET, 9.30am PT (USA), 10pm IST (India)
Venue: Nuevo Mirandilla, Cádiz, Spain
Referee: Carlos Del Cerro Grande
VAR: Ignacio Iglesias Villanueva
How to watch on TV: Not Available (USA), TSN 4 (Canada), Premier Sports 1 (UK), MTV (India), SuperSport (Nigeria), Movistar LaLiga, others
How to watch online: ESPN+ (USA), Premier Player (UK), Movistar+ (Spain), others
Following a dominant win at home over Viktoria Plzen to kick off their Champions League campaign in impressive fashion, Barcelona return to La Liga action this weekend when they travel to beautiful Andalusia for a meeting with Cádiz on Saturday afternoon.
Barça remain unbeaten to start the season, with four straight wins after the disappointing draw against Rayo Vallecano in the league opener and at least three really good, commanding performances in that stretch. Xavi Hernández is showing faith in his entire squad, rotating players in and out, testing different combinations and leading the team to excellent results.
The first major test of the season is next Tuesday when they travel to Germany for a high-profile Champions League clash with Bayern Munich, but there’s another really difficult challenge this weekend.
But any non-Barça fan reading this might think I’m crazy. “Wait, isn’t Cádiz bottom of the table?”, they’ll ask. You are right, reader. But did you know Barça haven’t beaten Cádiz in 16 years? And that they’ve scored a grand total of two goals in the last four meetings with Cádiz?
This Saturday’s clash is the dictionary definition of a trap game. Everyone will think ahead to Bayern and assume that an unbeaten, high-flying Barça will just walk all over Cádiz. And yes, they are easily the worst team in the league after four games. They have the second-worst defense in the division and are the only team yet to score in La Liga, and manager Sergio González is under pressure and could lose his job in case of a bad defeat in this one.
But they will park the bus against Barça, make the game as ugly and slow as possible, and hope for a miracle on the counter. It’s how they won at Camp Nou last April, and how they’ve managed to become a thorn on the Blaugrana’s side for the last two years.
Make no mistake about it: this won’t be easy, regardless of either team’s form. Sometimes a team just knows how to play against you and it’s a monumental task to beat them. This will be one of those games.
Let’s dance.
POSSIBLE LINEUPS
Barcelona (4-3-3): Ter Stegen; Kounde, Araujo, Eric, Balde; De Jong, Busquets, Gavi; Raphinha, Lewandowski, Ferran
Cádiz (4-5-1): Ledesma; Zaldua, Hernández, Chust, Espino; Alejo, Emeterio, Alarcón, Blanco, Ocampo; Lozano
PREDICTION
Barça have really struggled against Cádiz, but Cádiz have never been this bad. And we have Lewandowski now. It will be tough, it might take quite a while for the deadlock to be broken, but the first win against the bogey team will finally happen: 2-0 to the good guys.
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