Barcelona take on the visitors Osasuna in the semifinal match of Spanish Super Cup. The match will be played on Thursday, January 11th at KSU Stadium (Riyadh).
Barcelona managed to reach the first place at least in the last season, breaking their drought. However, now Real Madrid has clearly gained momentum, and Girona shows no signs of slowing down. As a result, Barcelona may have to focus on the battle for the 3rd or even 4th place in La Liga. Last fall, only the Champions League inspired them. Despite a setback with a loss to Shakhtar Donetsk, they eventually secured the first place after a couple of setbacks. Where they lack strength, partly due to numerous injuries, is in La Liga – winning 2/3 of the matches is not enough for the title race. However, perhaps the Spanish Super Cup will help? A year ago, Xavi claimed it, marking his first trophy as a coach in Spanish football. In 2024, his team started with a trip to Las Palmas, securing a hard-fought victory with a penalty goal in the 90+ minute. Then came a cup match against the relatively unknown team Barbastro, ending with a close 3-2 victory.
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Osasuna, as expected, surrendered but noticeably declined. The Pamplona-based club, a modest team that occasionally achieves significant success, experienced a peak last season. Although they repeated their maximum result by reaching the final of the cup, they lost it (by the way, their participation in that match sent them to the current tournament). Despite brighter performances in La Liga than the 7th place in 2022/2023, this marked the crowning achievement of Jagoba Arrasate's work, who once took charge of the team in the Segunda. At least for now, the results are much worse. It was expected that the Reds would struggle domestically and perform poorly internationally. However, they were eliminated from the Conference League by the much more experienced Brugge and are collecting just about one point per game, clearly sliding down to the lower part of the table. They did manage to defeat Almeria, though, even if it was by a narrow 1-0 margin. They repeated the same scoreline in the cup against Cartagena.
In the last 7 matches, Barcelona have won all but once, settling for a draw at the end of 2021. Certainly, Barcelona are the favorite and should win. However, both clubs are not in exceptional form, so let's go with the suggestion of total under 3.0 goals.
Prediction for the match: Under 3.0 scored goals.
