Athletic Bilbao hosts Real Sociedad in round 3 of Spanish LaLiga. The match will be played on Friday, August 30th at Estadio San Mamés (Bilbao)
Athletic Bilbao is developing very well under the management of Gaizka Garitano, and the first rounds confirm it: at first, Athletic dragged Barcelona in some moments and won 1-0, and then it managed to tie with Getafe at the Coliseum Alfonso Perez stadium. In the match against Getafe, Garitano chose his favorite 4-2-3-1 scheme. Compared to the match against Barcelona, Athletic has only one change - Etxebarria Benat appeared instead of Unai Lopez in the pivot zone. The match with Getafe was quite equal, and it was facilitated by the fact that not all leaders could play for Getafe - Bordalas decided to give the initiative to Athletic. The Basques could score quickly enough (Raul Garcia scored in the fifth minute), but they could not keep the winning score - almost immediately Jaime Mata scored his goal (it happened in the eleventh minute of the match). Athletic delivered only 4 shots on goal, but the Basques managed to outrank the team from the suburbs of Madrid in terms of expected goals (0.45 against 0.27). Raul Garcia’s goal got a quite high evaluation - as much as 0.33 xG. Getafe threatened Athletic’s goal infrequently: 6 shots and 0 obvious goal attempts (according to Understat).
| 2 x £10 Free Bet | Review | |||
| 100$-500$ for No Lose Free Bets | Review | |||
| 100% up to £200 | Review | |||
| Not available | Review |
Real Sociedad, like Athletic Bilbao, also started very well: yes, Real had no matches with teams from the top 3, but there was a very difficult trip to Valencia, where the San Sebastians were lucky and managed to earn 1 point. In the second round, Real Sociedad went to the Balearic Islands, where the men of Imanol Alguacil managed to beat local Mallorca with a 1:0 score. Alguacil chose a 4-3-3 scheme, which implied a large percentage of possession. And it happened - the Royal possessed the ball 64% of the playing time. But not only the scheme testifies to Real Sociedad’s desire to possess the ball in that match - the pressure intensity was at a very solid level (PPDA = 8.82 - it is better than last year's average of 9.36). And Real Sociedad excelled its opponent in terms of obvious goal attempts - in addition to the goal, there was also a headed shot of Oyarzabal.
In the last season, Real Sociedad built the game solely from the defense. As for this season, the Royal gives the initiative in the games against top rivals and bet on possession and creation of attempts against weaker teams. I think that Real Sociedad will have more possession of the ball in the match against Athletic, but it is not because of Athletic status (top match for both teams), but because of the style - Gaizka Garitano closes in almost all matches, and it turns out that his team does it perfectly (they held Barcelona in a great way). I think that will play defense first in the upcoming game, and that’s why we shouldn’t wait for goal extravaganza.
Prediction for the match: Under 2.5 goals scored
