Barcelona vs Athletic Bilbao, La Liga: Team News, Preview, Lineups, Score Prediction

FC Barcelona (3rd, 3pts) vs Athletic Club Bilbao (14th, 1pt)*

*Standings at the time of writing

Competition/Round: 2024-25 La Liga, Matchday 2

Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Ronald Araujo, Gavi, Ansu Fati, Andreas Christensen, Frenkie de Jong (out), Dani Olmo (doubt)

Athletic Outs & Doubts: Unai Simón, Aitor Paredes, Iñigo Ruiz de Galarreta, Alvaro Djaló, Nico Serrano (doubt)

Date/Time: Saturday, August 24, 2024, 7pm CET (Barcelona), 6pm BST/WAT (UK & Nigeria), 1pm ET, 10am PT (USA), 10.30pm IST (India)

Venue: Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, Montjuïc, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Referee: Jesús Gil Manzano

VAR: Valentín Pizarro Gómez

How to watch on TV: ESPN Deportes (USA), Premier Sports 1 (UK), SuperSport (Nigeria), others

How to watch online: ESPN+ (USA), LaLigaTV (UK), DAZN (Spain), others

Following an impressive and encouraging comeback win away to Valencia in their league curtain raiser, it’s time for Barcelona to make their home debut in the 2024-25 La Liga campaign as Hansi Flick’s troops take on some familiar faces in Ernesto Valverde and historic rivals Athletic Bilbao at the Montjuïc Olympic Stadium on Saturday evening.

Barça come into this one after a good start to life under their new head coach last week, with a mature, intense and well-coached team showing resilience, organization and hard work to find a way to win at one of the toughest grounds in the country. It was a solid way to begin, even if it wasn’t the most spectacular of performances.

And it was also against a good but not great Valencia side that wasn’t at their best either, so we are still waiting for Flick’s side to be truly tested in these early stages. Perhaps this weekend brings that first real test in the form of the Basque giants, who have been a thorn on Barça’s side in the last four years ever since they started playing each other in the Copa del Rey every single year.

But most of their clashes, especially in the Cup, have been at the Cathedral of San Mamés in what is undoubtedly the most hostile and intimidating environment in Spain. When these two meet in Barcelona, however, the scenario is much different: Barça usually win, establish their superiority, and face an Athletic side that is seemingly happy to not lose in Catalonia.

It remains to be seen whether winning their first title in four decades coupled with their recent success against Barça will finally unleash Valverde and the club as a whole to finally be more free wherever they go, but also from a Blaugrana perspective Hansi Flick needs to know if his tactics can hold up against really strong opposition and frighteningly quick and dangerous attackers.

Athletic have plenty of those, especially in the Williams Brothers. We all know about Iñaki’s tendency to turn into Batman whenever he faces Barça, but Nico is yet to have a true breakout performance against the club he has reportedly rejected this summer. Perhaps he’ll be looking to give the Catalans a taste of what they’ll be missing out on in what will probably be the only time he plays at Montjuïc this season?

And honestly, Barça really need the Williams Bros to go off and the rest of Athletic’s team to be more aggressive than usual in their visits to Catalonia. They need to be tested, and they need to find out if the loss to Monaco two weeks ago was just an aberration or a sign that their defense is very vulnerable against teams with the caliber of attacking players that Bilbao have.

The Hansi Flick Era will not be a smooth ride. His very coaching style is built on a suicidal high line that is destroyed by bad communication and/or special opponents. Athletic have a couple of special opponents, and we’ve seen (only a few, but still a few) signs of bad communication throughout preseason and in portions of the Valencia match. So maybe it’s a good thing if Barça suffer quite a few scares on Saturday to discover if there are big, systemic tactical issues that need to be worked on right away.

But if Valverde sets his team up not to lose, we might see a boring game that ends up in a Barça win and papers over some cracks. For the sake of the viewers and, frankly, for the sake of Hansi Flick and Barça fans watching this team develop, an open game is best for everyone involved.

Let’s dance.

POSSIBLE LINEUPS

Barcelona (4-2-3-1): Ter Stegen; Koundé, Cubarsí, Iñigo, Balde; Bernal, Casadó; Yamal, Pedri, Raphinha; Lewandowski

Athletic Bilbao (4-2-3-1): Agirrezabala; Gorosabel, Vivian, Yeray, Yuri; Prados, Vesga; I. Williams, Sancet, N. Williams; Guruzeta

PREDICTION

Barça and Athletic usually play really fun games at San Mamés, but their encounters in Catalonia tend to be tighter and lower scoring. I’m still keeping expectations low and this is a brutal test, so I’ll go safe with this one: 1-1 draw with good signs from the home team.