Barcelona faces the second day of LaLiga Santander with the challenge of achieving victory in a difficult place like Anoeta always is. After the disappointing goalless draw in the league debut against Rayo Vallecano, the Blaugrana team will face off against Real Sociedad, a dangerous team that started with a narrow win at Cádiz, with a goal from Japanese Take Kubo (0 -1).
Xavi Hernández's men want to add the three points to prevent doubts from taking over the team at this start. For this game, the Catalan coach will not be able to count on Sergio Busquets, who was sent off in the final minutes against the Rayistas at the Camp Nou.
Real Sociedad - Barça takes place this Sunday, August 21 at 10:00 p.m. and will be broadcast by Movistar LaLiga. The La Vanguardia website will also show what happens during the match live.
Returning to the sensitive loss of Busquets, we will have to see the decision that Xavi makes to replace a historically irreplaceable footballer. One option would be to reconfigure the drawing: go on to play with three central defenders and let Frenkie de Jong enter the eleven, a substitute in the first game. The other would be to overtake Christensen as a midfielder and relocate Araújo to central defense, maintaining the 4-3-3.
Imanol Alguacil, coach of Real, is confident of being able to beat Barça in San Sebastián, although he denies the alleged weakness of the Blaugrana after puncturing against Rayo and warns that "it is never a good time to play against these teams."
"It doesn't matter when you take Barcelona because they can always get their hands on you. The result against Rayo is misleading because they made more than 20 shots on goal and had very clear situations," Alguacil declared in his meeting with the press at the Reale Arena , where he assured that he would not have been surprised if his rival on Sunday in that first match "had scored four goals".
He described the match against Xavi's team as a "great challenge", whom he considers "a great coach" and predicted that his rival "will be close to fighting for the title, they will be safe at the top and he is one of the favourites".
He did not want to compare the current Blaugrana squad, after the important reinforcements this summer, with that of last season in which "without a doubt it was also a great Barcelona" and he hopes to be able to offer the fans that will fill the Reale Arena the first victory against the blaugranas since the tracks were removed in 2018 and the stadium was renovated.
Sheriff was upset by the situation of Carlos Fernández, who after a year off has been injured again because, according to Sheriff, "he forced a little to get to the first day" and trusts that he will have "continuity" once his last Physical problem.
Who will be is the forward of the other team, Robert Lewandowski. The Pole starred in the anecdote this week when he was the victim of the theft of a watch valued at 70,000 euros. Now he will want to make his debut as a scorer in an official match.
