Barcelona – Valencia

Valencia’s new manager Albert Celades will have a really tough debut on Saturday, because he will lead the team for a first time at the Camp Nou against the champion Barcelona. During the week Celades replaced the sacked Marcelino, so now he will try to prepare the team for a very tough visit to Catalonia.

Celades is a former player of Barcelona. Despite of doing well with the team, Marcelino was sacked because of his bad relationship with Valencia’s board. Right now Los Che are 10th in the standings with 4 points – just one less than Barca. In their last game Valencia recorded their first win for the season, beating Mallorca with 2-0 at the Mestalla.

Meanwhile Barcelona will be once again without their captain and star player Lionel Messi. The Argentine genius is still recovering from his injury. The good news is that Luis Suarez is once again ready to play, so most likely he will once again lead the attack on Saturday.

Barca are unbeaten after the first three rounds, but they won just one of their three matches so far – against Real Betis at home. In the previous round Los Cules visited Osasuna in Pamplona, but lost two points after a 2-2 draw. At El Sadar the young Ansu Fati and Arthur scored their first goals for the club. But clearly Barca are having some trouble to play without Leo Messi and this is visible for everyone.

Alongside Lionel Messi, Ousmane Dembele is also missing the game because of injury. This means that most likely Antoine Griezmann and Carles Perez will start alongside Luis Suarez in attack. The 16-years old Ansu Fati is going to be in the squad again, but you should expect to see him on the pitch as a substitute.

That’s what we had to say about the La Liga fixture between Barcelona and Valencia at the Camp Nou. Can Barca win this one without Messi? Let’s see.