Sunday will also be Barcelona’s first competitive match since their emphatic 8-2 mauling at the hands of Bundesliga champions, Bayern Munich, who went on to win last season’s Champions League, and the hosts will be keen to set the record straight against Villarreal in their La Liga season-opener.
Although they finished runners-up in La Liga and secured another Champions League spot for this season, it was nevertheless a disappointing campaign for Barcelona and former manager, Quique Setien, paid the price for not only being dumped out of the Champions League but in a manner that was completely unacceptable, along with falling short in their bid for the La Liga title as they ended up five points adrift of title-winners, Real Madrid.
Former Southampton and Everton manager (and former Barcelona player), Ronald Koeman, has since taken over the reigns at the Nou Camp where he’ll be looking to make the perfect start to this new Spanish top flight campaign against Villarreal.
Barcelona ended last season with just one defeat from their final 12 matches overall but this was enough to hand the title to fierce rivals, Real Madrid, but the hosts at least hold a good record against their visitors, winning six of the last seven encounters.
Onto Villarreal then, and the visitors enjoyed a solid campaign in last season’s La Liga as they finished in 5th place and gained automatic qualification for the Europa League, so all in all, a very satisfactory season for Unai Emery’s team.
Villarreal have also made a promising start to this new season as well as the visitors have picked up four points from their opening two matches of this new term following a 1-1 draw with Huesca and then collecting maximum points with a 2-1 win against Eibar.
However, it should be noted that both of these results were achieved on home turf at their Estadio de la Cerámica where they suffered just five defeats throughout the whole of last season’s La Liga campaign.
Results away from home however were extremely inconsistent as Villarreal’s away record of W9 D1 L9 indicates and although they ended on a positive note by winning four of their final five away matches, they had lost to each of the top three teams at Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.
Barcelona’s quality should see them through once again over this Villarreal side who will hold their own again this season but still find themselves a way behind the elite of La Liga.