On Wednesday, having dealt with the injuries they were facing, the leaders of the Spanish championship do not have time to rest and will already test their strength in the evening against seemingly weaker teams. Saturday evening will show whether the teams in the bottom half of the tournament table will be able to challenge the clubs fighting for the gold.
The first team to take the field on Saturday will be the footballers of Madrid's "Real", who will face the 16th placed and fighting for survival in the league team "Rayo Vallecano". Although they have shown much better results lately and have only lost once in their last 6 matches in "La Liga", the result of their first match certainly does not bring them comfort - "Real" defeated them at home by a huge margin of 10-2. There is no solace in their head-to-head history either - in the Spanish championship, "Rayo Vallecano" has lost to this Madrid team already in 15 consecutive matches. The only comfort for the hosts will be that "Real" will be without Cristiano Ronaldo, who suffered an injury in the previous match.
The Madrid team occupying the second place, "Atletico", will face "Malaga" on Saturday evening. The opponents of Madrid teams playing at home have not been shining lately and have not secured a victory in Spain for four consecutive matches. Without Diego Godin, the remaining "Atletico" defense should not have too much work in these matches - "Malaga" is one of the four least productive teams in "La Liga", and during their recent unsuccessful match series, they only scored in every other game. Nevertheless, they also do not allow many goals, as the "Atletico" players themselves could see - in their first encounter, the Madrid team did not score and lost the match 0-1.
If we look only at the tournament table, the weakest opponent awaits the "Barcelona" team, which is the third of the three leaders - the team "Gijon" occupying the 18th place. However, in the last five matches they have defeated both "Sevilla" and "Atletico", with only one loss. However, both victories were achieved at home, and now "Gijon" awaits a match at the "Camp Nou" stadium, where in the last decade they never managed to take even a point. "Deportivo", having crushed "Barca" with a score of 8-0 in the last round, does not seem willing to joke around anymore, therefore it might be too difficult for the team fighting for survival to break this unpleasant streak in these matches.
Saturday's "La Liga" matches:
17:00 "Rayo Vallecano" - "Real"
19:15 "Atletico" - "Malaga"
21:30 "Barcelona" - "Gijon"
23:05 "Eibar" - "Deportivo"
Sunday's "La Liga" matches:
13:00 "Levante" - "Athletic"
17:00 "Sevilla" - "Betis"
19:15 "Getafe" - "Valencia"
21:30 "Villarreal" - "Real Sociedad"
Tautvydas Sakalauskas
