Barcelona vs Sevilla

Camp Nou is the venue as high-flying Barcelona and stalemate-prone Sevilla go head-to-head in a blockbuster La Liga top-three six-pointer.

Barcelona headed into March’s international break amid a purple patch as a thumping 4-0 win away to bitter rivals Real Madrid last time out made it five La Liga victories in a row. Xavi’s high-flyers have netted precisely four goals in four of those five victories, reminiscing the Camp Nou faithful of their glorious past days. Moreover, Barca have won their last four home league fixtures by an aggregate score of 15-4. The ‘Blaugrana’ will turn their attention to extending their eye-catching 13-game unbeaten league streak (W9, D4) at the expense of La Liga’s longest ongoing unbeaten run owned by Sevilla (15). There’s plenty of reason for optimism as the Catalans have not lost any of their last 18 home meetings with Sevilla in Spain’s top-flight (W15, D3) since a 3-0 defeat in December 2002.

On the other hand, Sevilla’s hopes of landing their first La Liga title since 1945/46 look far-fetched following an underwhelming run of three consecutive league draws. Julen Lopetegui’s men have earned a reputation as the ‘stalemate specialists’ this season, having drawn a league joint-high 12 La Liga matches in 2021/22. With Real Madrid eking out a 2-1 win at Celta Vigo yesterday, ‘Los Rojiblancos’ face an uphill task to recover a staggering 12-point distance on table-topping ‘Los Blancos’ across their final nine league outings. Yet, there’s a piece of history open for grabs at Camp Nou, as another win/draw would see Sevilla go unbeaten in 16 consecutive fixtures across a single La Liga campaign for the first time in their history. Even that is unlikely to persuade Lopetegui to abandon his defensive-minded philosophy that has witnessed Sevilla’s away league games feature the lowest average of 1.33 goals scored/conceded per match this season.