Griffin Wong previews Sunday’s La Liga match between Villarreal and FC Barcelona.
The European football season is long, and there might be no better proof of that than La Liga, where Real Madrid looked like Spain’s clear top team at the start of the season but now trails Barcelona by four points after 17 matches. Besides Spain’s traditional powers, there’s even a surprise team in the mix: Villarreal is on 35 points, eight behind the Catalans, but it has two games in hand.
The Yellow Submarine could control its own destiny by cutting the deficit to five while retaining the games in hand when it plays Barcelona on Sunday at 10:15 a.m. ET (4:15 p.m. local) at the Estadio de la Cerámica.
Barcelona is a -120 favorite to win at DraftKings Sportsbook, and Villarreal is +245. The teams have +360 odds to draw.
Villarreal vs. Barcelona prediction, pick
Given the Yellow Submarine’s Champions League form — in the European competition, they’re second-to-last on just one point and their elimination is all-but-guaranteed — it’s definitely a positive surprise that the La Liga title race has been so competitive so far. Still, Villarreal hasn’t had any signature wins, cleaning up against weaker competition but losing to Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid and drawing to Celta Vigo and Real Betis. Beating the bad teams is important — for instance, the Yellow Submarine beat Sevilla and Barça lost the same fixture — but so is beating the good teams, and the Blaugrana triumphed over Atlético. After losing to both sides of Madrid, Sunday’s game will be Villarreal’s opportunity to prove that it belongs in any La Liga contender discussions.
Barcelona hasn’t had the most convincing season, but it’s still Barcelona. After falling embarrassingly to Chelsea in the Champions League, the Blaugrana have won six straight games in all competitions, and they’re beginning to return to full health, as both Raphinha and Joan García returned to the pitch in November after missing nearly two months with injuries. Four different players — Lamine Yamal, Ferrán Torres, Raphinha, and Robert Lewandowski — have at least nine goal contributions, and Yamal’s seven assists lead all of La Liga. The Blaugrana’s defense could be better — the 20 goals they’ve allowed are tied for the ninth-most in the Spanish top flight — but scoring 15 more goals than any other team helps lead to wins, as does leading the league in goals minus expected goals and progressive carries.
Still, if any team can match Barcelona in what could be a shootout, it’s Villarreal. While the Yellow Submarine’s 31 goals only place it third in La Liga, it has two of the league’s five most clinical finishers by goals minus expected goals in Tajon Buchanan and Alberto Moleiro. That’s not to mention Ayoze Pérez, who led the team in goals last season and has smashed home three in his last five games, scoring from his only shot on target in Villarreal’s Copa del Rey elimination against Racing Santander on Wednesday. Defensively, the Yellow Submarine have been much more clinical than Barça, conceding just 13 goals, the fewest of any team in Spain. It also has the second-highest tackle win percentage on challenges, the fifth-most interceptions, and it’s allowed the second-fewest non-penalty expected goals per shot. Luiz Lúcio Reis Júnior has faced easy shots — which might not be the case against a Blaugrana team that attempts the third-highest quality shots — but he easily leads the league in save percentage and clean sheet percentage.
Home-field advantage could make a difference, given that Villarreal has not yet lost at Estadio de la Cerámica this season and has only conceded four goals in eight home matches, and that alone makes me very tempted to take a flier on an upset. Ultimately, though, the injuries to the Yellow Submarine’s back line — Juan Foyth and Sergi Cardona both suffered muscular injuries in the Copa del Rey match, ruling them out for Sunday’s contest — will stop it from making up ground. I’ll take Barcelona to win in an electric, high-scoring affair.
