Barcelona vs Getafe, La Liga: Team News, Preview, Lineups, Score Prediction
FC Barcelona (3rd, 54pts) vs Getafe CF (10th, 34pts)*
*Standings at the time of writing
Competition/Round: 2023-24 La Liga, Matchday 26
Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Gavi, Alejandro Balde, Ferran Torres, Marcos Alonso (out)
Getafe Outs & Doubts: Mauro Arambarri (out), Fabricio Angileri (doubt)
Date/Time: Saturday, February 24, 2024, 4.15pm CET/WAT (Barcelona & Nigeria), 3.15pm GMT (UK), 10.15am ET, 7.15am PT (USA), 8.45pm IST (India)
Venue: Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, Montjuïc, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Referee: Alejandro Muñiz Ruiz
VAR: Eduardo Prieto Iglesias
How to watch on TV: ESPN Deportes (USA), TSN 1 (Canada), SuperSport (Nigeria), Movistar (Spain), others
How to watch online: ESPN+ (USA), LaLigaTV (UK), Movistar+ (Spain), others
Following a hard-fought draw away to Napoli in the Champions League in midweek, Barcelona have to deal with a quick turnaround as they return home for a La Liga match against Getafe at the Montjuïc Olympic Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Barça come into this one after a decent result on the road in their knockout stage debut, with a solid team performance that gives the team hope of getting to the quarter-finals in the return leg in the three weeks.
But until then the Blaugrana have one job: staying alive in the league title race. Real Madrid’s surprising slip-up at Rayo Vallecano last week once again gave the defending champions a slight hope of getting back in contention for the championship, but they simply cannot afford to drop points until they meet Madrid again later in the season with a chance to directly take points away from their biggest rivals.
They play before Los Blancos this weekend which is a good chance to put pressure on the leaders, who would be just five points ahead of Barça before they face Sevilla on Sunday night if the Catalans win on Saturday. If that happens and Madrid can’t restore their eight-point lead over Barça at home and drop points for a second straight week, then things would start getting interesting.
We have reached the point of the season where a team is what it is, so expecting Barça to miraculously start playing beautiful football and winning games by three or four goals is just foolish. All you can hope right now is that the Catalans keep finding ways to win, and they have played well enough in recent weeks to provide at least some encouragement that they might be able to be back in the title race if Madrid let them.
But winning on Saturday will not be easy at all, and it’s not just about Barça’s inconsistency: their opponents are the most annoying team in the league in Getafe, who are sitting comfortably in mid-table and having yet another sucessful season that might give them a place in Europe next year.
They continue to be ugly to watch and way too physical, and they always seem to save their best (and worst) for games against Barça. Their first matchup this season on opening weekend was the perfect example: Getafe did everything in their power to destroy the pace of the game with dirty tactics, and Ilkay Gündogan almost had his ribs broken on his Barça debut by an intentional elbow that the referee didn’t see and VAR didn’t even think about being a possible red card offense.
Raphinha was sent off in the first half of that game after being frustrated enough to lash out at an opponent, and the refereeing allowed Getafe to kick the living hell out of Barça for 90 minutes untl the game ended goalless and became a terrible advertisement for La Liga.
That will probably be the case again this weekend, so if you’re looking for a fun game of football where both teams will be looking to score goals and entertain you will have to look for another match to watch. This will unfortunately be an ugly, low-scoring battle, and Barça just have to find a way to win, whatever it takes.
Let’s fight.
POSSIBLE LINEUPS
Barcelona (4-2-3-1): Ter Stegen; Kounde, Araujo, Cubarsí, Cancelo; Romeu, De Jong; Raphinha, Gündogan, Pedri; Lewandowski
Getafe (4-4-2): Soria; Iglesias, Djené, Alderete, Rico; Greenwood, Milla, Maksimovic, Martin; Mayoral, Mata
PREDICTION
There’s nothing fun of entertaining about playing Getafe. All you can hope for is that no one gets injured by a horror tackle or gets sent off thanks to their dirty tactics and that Barça will have found a way to win when the game ends: 2-1 to the good guys, but no matter who wins we will all be losers for having to sit through 90 minutes of Getafe.
