Spanish La Liga
2008-05-07 - Real Madrid vs Barcelona
A Sports Betting Pick by chappers
- La Liga -
Santiago Bernabeu
7th May 2008 KO 9PM (live on Sky)
Real Madrid (1st La Liga - Champions -)
Played 35 with 78 points
Real this season seemed to do their level best at times to throw away the league title and have lost seven times this season and when you consider in England that Chelsea and Arsenal have only lost three games then for me if any team in Spain could have got their act together then the league would have been a whole lot closer. However it isn’t and with the two late goals on Sunday night the league title went to the Bernabeu for the second year on the bounce.
Despite losing seven games this season Madrid are still currently ten points clear at the top as they have only drawn three games all season and have an overall record of 25-3-7 which means they have won 68% of all league games played. However at home where they are normally red hot they have lost twice this season but on the flip side they have won the other 15, which shows a win, rate of 88% which is still very impressive.
Madrid have been in cracking form to see them over the line and have now won five out of the last six games and this is in stark contrast to the six games before that which saw a record of 2-0-4 and at this stage the league title did look in doubt, however Barca at the time decided that they didn’t want to win games either and as such the title is once more with the team from the capital.
Barcelona (3rd La Liga)
Played 35 with 64 points
This has to go down a very disappointing season for Barca this season, which currently has them in third place before both Madrid and Villarreal. I very much doubt this will be satisfactory for the board of Barca and I’ll be very surprised if a new manager is not in charge come the start of next season. The only hope was maybe a champions league win but defeat over two legs by Manchester United put an end to that.
Barcelona have lost the same number of games this season as Madrid so the chance was they’re for them to win the title but when you look at the draw column you can see where the problem lies. Ten games this season have been drawn and that is seven more than Madrid and as such it’s not hard to see why Madrid are currently fourteen points ahead. Away from the Camp Nou, Barca have struggled a little bit with only four away wins this season and a overall record 4-8-5 which means for a team that is third top they have only won 24% of the time away from home and this is not good enough.
You have to go back to the 16th February for the last time that Barca picked up three points away from the Camp Nou. During this time they have lost three games and all three were back to back and during this time, Madrid were also losing this for me is the point were Barca blew any chance of the league title. Recently they have also been very poor at home, however they did beat a very poor Valencia 6-0 at the weekend.
Head to Head
While Madrid do well in the fixture and have won three times out of the last six, they don’t get it all their own way and Barca are more than capable of getting something. Last season saw the home side win 2-0 but two years ago, Barca went to the capital and came away with a fantastic 3-0 win.
Verdict
Barca come into this game with the still second place to play for but with only three games to play they must carry on the form that they found at the weekend and more importantly also need Villarreal to slip up.
Real Madrid however will welcome Barcelona to the capital with back to back titles in the bag and this for me will help give them an edge as it will be party time at the Santiago Bernabeu and I very much doubt that they will want Barca to come and spoil the party.
Yet how many times have we seen that happen, just look at Manchester United v West Ham last season, however one main difference was of course that West Ham were fighting to stay up. Anyway I'm going for the home win in this one and to be honest, when it comes to this type of game you could also do a lot worse than go for over 2.5 goals also.
So Real Madrid to win @ 2.00 is well worth a bet
The Statistics :
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The Pick :
Real Madrid to win this match
