Deportivo Alavés vs Barcelona, La Liga: Team News, Match Preview

FC Barcelona (2nd, 79pts) vs Deportivo Alavés (15th, 39pts)

Competition/Round: 2019-20 La Liga, Matchday 38

Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Gerard Piqué, Ivan Rakitic, Antoine Griezmann, Junior Firpo, Samuel Umtiti, Ousmane Dembélé, Arthur (out)

Alavés Outs & Doubts: Rubén Duarte, Rodrigo Ely, Fernando Pacheco (out), Ximo Navarro (doubt)

Date/Time: Sunday, July 19, 2020, 5pm CET (Barcelona), 4pm BST/WAT (UK & Nigeria), 11am ET, 8am PT (USA), 8.30pm IST (India)

Venue: Estadio Mendizorrotza, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain

Referee: Juan Martínez Munuera

How to watch on TV: beIN SPORTS (USA & Canada), LaLigaTV (UK), SuperSport 7 (Nigeria), Movistar LaLiga (Spain), Not Available (India), others

How to stream: fuboTV (USA), beIN SPORTS CONNECT (USA & Canada), Premier Player (UK), Facebook Live (India), Movistar+ (Spain), others

Following an embarrassing loss to Osasuna at Camp Nou to officially end the La Liga title race, Barcelona return to action to mercifully play the last match of the season away to Deportivo Alavés in the Basque Country.

With second place guaranteed and seven first team players missing, it’s really hard to be interested at all in this match. Alavés are safe from relegation and don’t really care about this one either, although they would obviously enjoy beating Barça to end their season.

Quique Setién’s job is on the line and there’s a chance he might not survive until the Champions League in August, so at least there’s one person who really needs this game to be fun and interesting. Yay?

POSSIBLE LINEUPS

Barcelona (4-3-3): Ter Stegen; Semedo, Araujo, Lenglet, Alba; Roberto, De Jong, Puig; Ansu Fati, Suárez, Braithwaite

Alavés (4-3-3): Roberto; Aguirregabiria, Magallán, Laguardia, Marín; García, Pina, Pons; Vidal, Pérez, Sainz

PREDICTION

Not even the boredom and lack of interest for this match can defeat my optimism: 3-1 to the good guys.