Sunday, 6 January 2019 20:45 BARCELONA TIME Canada – Vancouver (11:45 PM) / Toronto (2:45 PM) | US – Los Angeles (11:45 PM) / New York (2:45 PM) Latin America México City (1:45 PM) / Bogotá (2:45 PM) / Santiago de Chile (4:45 PM) / Buenos Aires (4:45 PM) / Brasil – Brasilia (5:45 PM) Monday, 7 January 2019 India– New Delhi (1:15 AM) | Indonesia – Jakarta (2:45 AM) | China – Beijing (3:45 AM) | Japan – Tokyo (4:45 AM) | Australia– Sydney (6:45 AM) Coliseum Alfonso Pérez PREVIOUS MEETINGS SLL 11-02-2018 FT Barcelona 0 : 0 Getafe SLL 16-09-2017 FT Getafe 1 : 2 Barcelona SLL 12-03-2016 FT Barcelona 6 : 0 Getafe SLL 31-10-2015 FT Getafe 0 : 2 Barcelona SLL 28-04-2015 FT Barcelona 6 : 0 Getafe SLL 13-12-2014 FT Getafe 0 : 0 Barcelona VISCAELBARCA
Carrying 3 yellows going into this match: Alba, Busquets, Rakitic, Umtiti Upcoming Liga fixtures: J19 (H) Eibar J20 (H) Leganés J21 (A) Girona
Glad to have football back in Spain. Most players are well rested and healthy with the exceptions being Rafinha, Umtiti, and Vermaelen I think. Roberto back to practicing, and I think Malcom and Samper are healthy again? I guess Murillo will be registered and eligible to play too? Lineup wise I predict EV sticks with his current favorite healthy 11 which has lately been: MAtS Semedo-Pique-Lenglet-Alba Rakitic-Busquets-Vidal Leo-Suarez-Demebele That lineup leaves Roberto out at RB, leaves Coutinho out of the front 3 (and out of the midfield), and leaves Arthur out of the starting midfield. We have a bad recent history of losing (or drawing) the first game back after the winter break (though often those games are the first legs of two-legged Copa matches. I think I read our last win was in 2014? Anyways, need a win this time and I think the team will deliver.
Barça are first La Liga in avg. possession (64.83%) Getafe are last La Liga in avg. possession (37.87%). Getafe stadium named after a former Blaugrana player: Built in 1998 the ‘Estadio Coliseum Alfonso Pérez’, to give it its full name, was named after the striker born in Getafe and who played for the club at youth level before making the short trip north to join Real Madrid. After leaving Real Madrid and a spell with Betis, Alfonso Pérez signed for Barça in the year 2000. Unfortunately, the striker was never really able to recapture the form that had seen him star for the Spanish national team in the European Championships in 1996 and 2000 and the World Cup in 1998 and in 2002 he left Barça after just two seasons in which he managed two goals in 21 appearances. All available first teamers, including Murillo: practiced today with 7 B teamers, the most usual suspects Puig, Chumi, and Miranda joined by Inaki Pena (G), Moussa Wague (RB), Oriol Busquets (DM), and Alex Collado (AM/RW). Samper is still injured, as are Vermaelen, Umtiti, and Rafinha. Who will score Barça's first goal of the year in @LaLiga? 2012: Cesc 2013: Xavi 2014: Alexis 2015: Luis Suárez 2016: Messi 2017: Messi 2018: Messi ¿2019? --- I'll play the odds and guess Messi does it again.
Squad list notes: only healthy player not on 19 man list (so one more to get cut) is Munir (are we Rabiot'ing him since he plans to leave in June)? Roberto and Malcom cleared from injury. Still injured are Samper, Vermaelen, Umtiti, and Rafinha. DEBUT of Murillo. No Barca B players: Sticking with my same lineup prediction (see above, its the current grand once with Semedo at RB, Lenglet filling in for Umtiti, Vidal over Arthur, and Dembele over Coutinho). As always, I hope we get a lead of 2 goals or more which allows for more resting and ego management, in this case I'd sub on 3 of the following assuming they don't start: Roberto (to get wind back, but maybe as a mid?), Malcom or Coutinho or both, Arthur or Alena or both (get Busi off as he was throwing up a couple days ago), and finally Murillo.
Sacred ground, the Alfonso Pérez, after the pitch was Blessed last season by Lord Pauliniho's first goal as a Blaugrana. *sigh*
Also where the Dembele injury happened last season though, and that set him back for a long time (he had another injury too, we adopted a 4-4-2, Coutinho joined and was ready to contribute right away). As for Paulinho, he was a surprisingly great signing, and now it turns out we only made a couple millions selling him back to Evergrande (42M not 50M), not 10M as reported, so why did it happen again? I mean given the signing of Vidal we wind up being similar and maybe even better but a weird way to tweak a squad that is trying to win it all.
Lineup is official, Busi rested and Semedo replaced by Roberto. So Arthur and Vidal both start along w Rakitic, not clear who plays DM but guessing it's the rocket man. So mats Roberto Pique lenglet Alba Vidal Rakitic Arthur Leo Suarez dembele
Birthday boy Denis is the 19th man in squad list who was dropped to the stands, could be a sign we let him go in January? Even with Rafinha out EV favors Alena (not saying that's a bad call).