Eibar are the smallest club to ever play in the Spanish top flight. Their stadium, Estadio Municipal de Ipurua has a capacity of just under 6,500 people, which is tiny, even in comparison to teams in the third tier of English football.
Yet, they host the defending La Liga champions, Barcelona, sitting 9th in the table, which is an incredible achievement. While Barcelona are attracting crowds of close to 100,000 for their home matches, the town of Eibar has a population of 27,000 and this puts into perspective what a David and Goliath story we have this Sunday.
Barcelona head to the Ipurua having received a life-line from Sevilla last weekend. Real Madrid’s defeat in Seville has kept the title race alive and Barcelona sit 2 points off the leaders, although they do have a game in hand. The comfortable 5-0 win over Las Palmas was just what the doctor ordered last weekend, following a disappointing start to 2017. Luis Enrique’s team face another away trip next weekend, when they play Real Betis and it’s hugely important they do not drop points in this game.
Perhaps the most significant change in Barcelona’s play has come at the back, firstly with the clean sheet against Las Palmas and then the clean sheet at Real Sociedad in the Copa del Rey on Thursday night. That makes it three clean sheets in eight matches and Enrique will be hoping this is a sign of things to come, with goal scoring never really being a problem. Away from home in La Liga, Barcelona are unbeaten in five games, scoring 10 goals at an average of 2 per game. However, they also conceded 5 goals, at an average of 1 per game, a statistic they will be hoping to improve on this weekend. The key absentees for Barcelona are Javier Mascherano, who is suspended and Andres Iniesta, who is set to miss the game with injury.
Moving on to the hosts and Eibar have lost only two of their last twelve home La Liga matches and they will be hoping to use their compact ground to cause an upset against Barcelona. Unfortunately, scoring goals has been a bit of problem recently, having failed to register against both Atletico Madrid and Alaves. Defensively they have been good and Jose Mendilibar’s team have conceded 4 goals in their last five home league games.
In three of the last four league games between the two clubs, Eibar have failed to score against Barcelona and with the Catalan giants enjoying two recent clean sheets, they may struggle to make the breakthrough in this game. That’s not to say it will be an easy win for Barcelona, who will need to work hard for anything they get and may have to settle for a 1 goal margin of victory. The 1-0 away win could be worth backing here or Barcelona to win to nil.