Barcelona begin their La Liga title defence with an away game against Mallorca. Hansi Flick’s team won every domestic trophy last term, and they’re looking confident again heading into the new season.
The Catalan giants have won all four pre-season games, scoring 20 goals in the process. While three of those matches were against limited opponents in the Far East, a dominant 5-0 victory over Como in the Joan Gamper Trophy last time out suggests they are in pretty good shape.
The pre-season has thrown up a few issues for Barca though. Marc-Andre ter Stegen was removed and then reinstated as captain, while key centre-back Inigo Martinez has surprisingly moved to Al-Nassr. Joan Garcia and Marcus Rashford have arrived, with the club hopeful they can be registered before this showdown at Son Moix.
Mallorca have made one major addition and that involved Barcelona, with Pablo Torre moving to the Balearic Islands on a €5m deal. He’s a likely debutant on the opening weekend for Jagoba Arrasate’s side who won four of six in pre-season. They were 2-0 winners over Hamburg in their final friendly, and are hoping to build on last season’s solid mid-table finish.
How the bookies view it: Barca the odds-on favourites
Boylesports make Barcelona the 1/2 favourites to get their campaign underway with three points. You can back Mallorca to spring a surprise at 9/2, while the draw is priced at 16/5.
Recent head-to-head: Flick’s men to fire in the shots again?
Last season, Barcelona registered 60 shots across their two league games against Mallorca who struggled to keep Flick’s side at bay for long. They won 5-1 at Son Moix, and 1-0 at home, despite having a ridiculous 40 attempts in that game.
With neither side having radically changed over the summer months, a similar kind of match could be in store here, and you can back Barca to have over 6.5 shots on target at 1/1 with UniBet.
Players to watch: Ferran capable of firing
Ferran Torres started both games against Mallorca last term, scoring on this ground, and he’s in line to start again given Robert Lewandowski is an injury doubt. The Spain international is a very capable deputy, and he scored 19 times in all competitions last term, despite largely being a back-up player. You can back Ferran to score anytime at 6/5 with Boylesports.
Predicted Lineups
Samu Costa is the only injury doubt for Mallorca, who are expected to go with Leo Roman rather than Dominik Greif in goal.
Lewandowski is the only significant doubt for Barca, besides ter Stegen who has been ruled out through injury, but likely wouldn’t have started. Rashford may be used off the bench on his La Liga debut if he is registered in time.
Mallorca: Roman, Mojica, Valjent, Raillo, Morey, Morlanes, Mascarell, Torre, Darder, Asano, Muriqi.
Barcelona: J. Garcia, Balde, Cubarsi, Araujo, Kounde, de Jong, Pedri, Raphinha, Fermin, Yamal, Ferran.
Anything else catch the eye?
Mallorca are overall a relatively solid team defensively against most teams, but that hasn’t been the case in their recent meetings with Barca. Flick’s side consistently found a way to open them up last term and there’s no danger of the German abandoning his high-risk attacking approach.
Given that, backing Barcelona and over 2.5 goals at 6/5 with Boylesports looks to offer better value than simply going with the visitors in the full-time result market.
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