Espanyol takes on visitors Atletico Madrid in round 36 of Spanish LaLiga. The match will be played on Saturday, May 4th at RCDE Stadium (Barcelona)
We may already congratulate Espanyol on the fulfillment of the task for the season - the Catalans managed to maintain their place in Spanish LaLiga. However, as the saying runs, the appetite comes while eating, so Juan Rubi’s team is probably still dreaming of getting into the Europa League. Of course, it will be problematic to do this (6 points margin to the seventh place, whereas there are only three games left), but the players probably would not mind keeping on the struggle.
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A significant event - the arrival of Wu Lei- occurred in the life of Espanyol. Not to say that this player did something special in the field, but in terms of commerce, he just sent Espanyol into space. The fact is that Wu Lei is one of the most popular sportsmen in China, which provided simply a mad television audience for Espanyol’s games. This does not give a great result so far, but such a popularization of Espanyol helps not only this Barcelonian club but the whole La Liga. I am sure that the next contract for broadcasting La Liga matches will be much more profitable for the clubs; the Chinese audience of Espanyol has already got it on the act and will continue doing it.
Atletico had spent a good season, if you look at the ratio of their results/resources objectively: they overtake Real Madrid by a large margin in the championship and restructure their style towards more attacking one (and this trend has been observed not for the first year, but the arrival of Rodri served as an additional catalyst for this process). However, Atletico is perfect in positional defense, when it is necessary and everyone is healthy (this is especially true when Godin, Filipe Luis and Juanfran are 100 years old together, Savic throws his boot in the physical training coach, and Hernandez constantly falls out due to injuries).
Technically, the continuation of the text follows from the previous paragraph - it is enough for Atletico to score at least one point in the three remaining matches, and they will ensure the second place.
Yes, Atletico has already lost motivation, but I don’t think that the team will be notoriously relaxed at the end of this season - the fans will not understand it. Espanyol has certain chances of getting into European cups, and this hope lives in the players, but let's be realistic; the fans and the players should postpone the talks about European cups at least until next season.
I think that Atletico, although it wants to win, is unlikely to play hyper-attacking football. For Espanyol, such playing is also not very profitable, so my prediction is Under 2.5 goals scored.
Prediction for the match: Under 2.5 goals scored
