La Liga Preview: Barcelona - Racing

Barcelona (15th, 0pts) v Racing Santander (10th, 1pt)
20:00 CET - Saturday, September 13, 2008
Camp Nou, Barcelona

Whether the international break was a blessing for Barcelona after their opening day defeat against Numancia or prolonged the inquisition into why they lost will matter little as the team will be expected to start their season this weekend when Racing Santander visit Camp Nou.

Life for the Blaugrana is never without pressure and the fact that they were beaten in Los Parajitos gave the critics and the philosophers of the game time to say everything that they wanted as the World Cup qualifiers took priority almost as soon as the final whistles blew around the country two weeks ago.

Barça had such a convincing pre-season that losing to Numancia was seen as even more of a shock than the fact they lost to a newly-promoted team who had never beaten them before and were only starting out on only their fourth ever campaign in the Spanish top flight.

Pep Guardiola's team of superstars looked bereft of ideas and enthusiasm as they came up against a wall of defenders and once the hosts had taken the lead it rarely looked likely that the Blaugrana were going to reproduce the goal gluts that had been so evident in Scotland and the United States.

Warning signs were there as only days before Barça were beaten by Wisla Kraków, but many chose to ignore that as the visitors in Poland had won the first game by four goals and a lack of inspiration was blamed. That excuse could not be used against Numanica, but luckily for Barcleona both those games now seem like distant history.

Madrid Reverse

Many pundits and fans think that losing the opening game could have been the wake-up call that Guardiola and his players required after receiving so much praise in the build-up and things were certainly eased when Real Madrid were beaten by Deportivo La Coruña later the same evening.

This Saturday however, there will be no excuses should Racing take anything other than a sound beating back to Cantabria with them as the new era that is required to start at the club has to kick into gear in style or risk seeing confidence plummet.

While Racing have had only two players away on international duty, Guardiola has been left with just five first-team players to train and prepare with and has just one training session on Friday evening and one on Saturday morning to prepare his squad.

That should still be enough time given that the length of pre-season was longer than normal and that the club have not lost their opening home league fixture for 20 seasons, with Sevilla being the last side to record a victory in 1987-88.

The new additions have had time to settle in with Seydou Keita, Dani Alves, Gerard Piqué and Martín Cáceres all joining prior to the start of pre-season and Aliaksandr Hleb joining with enough time to play in some of the warm-up matches.

Guardiola accepted the blame for the defeat against Numancia as he stated that most of the players did not pick up his instructions well enough, but there will be little doubt about their roles before the second game.

Racing Times

With the new coach earning nothing but praise from his players, the squad will be keen to take the pressure off the former Barça playmaker and prove that it was their lack of ideas and creativity and not his inability to communicate that hampered them in Los Parajitos.

Changes have been rife at Racing too with coach Marcelino deciding to drop down a division and take over at Real Zaragoza despite leading the Cantabrian outfit into Europe for the first time in their history during his first campaign in charge.

Four players left when their loan deals ran out and six others have gone, although none can be considered to have been keys to the club's success last term. Only Aldo Duscher's departure to Sevilla and, arguably, Jorge López's transfer to Real Zaragoza, won any headlines.

Perhaps one of the best pieces of business that the modest club did do was to sell their star defender, Ezequiel Garay to Real Madrid and then borrow him back for a campaign while they look for his replacement.

The Argentinian centre-back was due to join Barça and only this week accusations about why the deal did not go through have been made publicly by various officials from both sides and makes his arrival at Camp Nou all the more interesting.

RECENT FORM

Barcelona

31/08 A 0-1 Numancia
27/08 A 0-1 Wisla Kraków
16/08 H 2-1 Boca Juniors
13/08 H 4-0 Wisla Kraków
06/08 A 6-2 New York Red Bulls
04/08 A 5-2 Guadalajara

Racing Santander

31/08 H 1-1 Sevilla
24/08 A 2-1 San Fernando
23/08 A 2-1 Xerez
19/08 A 1-1 Eibar
16/08 A 1-2 Osasuna
05/08 A 3-2 Olympiakos

TEAM NEWS

Barcelona

Guardiola has called up 20 players for the game with only Rafa Márquez and Martín Cáceres being left out after their long trips. Albert Jorquera and Gaby Milito are both still out injured. Lionel Messi only returned on Friday morning, but he trained in the evening and stated that he was ready and raring to go.

Squad: Valdés, Pinto, Puyol, Alves, Piqué, Abidal, Sylvinho, Touré Yaya, Busquets, Keita, Gudjohnsen, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro, Víctor Sánchez, Henry, Bojan, Hleb, Eto'o, Messi.

Racing Santander

Juan Ramón López Muñiz named his squad after the team's last training session before they departed for Barcelona on Friday morning and has included 18 players in the trip.

Squad: Toño, Coltorti, Pinillos, Oriol, Marcano, Laucen, Colsa, Gonçalves, Pereira, Munitis, Tchité, Serrano, Cristian, Juanjo, Garay, Luccin, Valera, Edu Bedía.

PREDICTION

The so-called bad luck in front of goal that Guardiola and the players all complained about two weeks ago cannot happen again in this encounter or Barça could be considered to be in a mini-crisis after just a couple of games into the new season. Racing will come to defend, but they are an unknown quantity and that could be factor. With the crowd behind them, although many regulars are away for the bridge weekend, will give the team a lift and it is all set up for them to net a few if they can open their account early on.

Barcelona 4 - 1 Racing Santander

Lucas Brown, Goal.com