La Liga Preview: God Save King Juan Carlos of Spain

Spanish Football / Tobias Gourlay / 17 September 2009 / Leave a Comment

Juan Carlos Valerón. Footballing royalty.

Recommended Bets: Back Barcelona/Barcelona at [2.0] v Atlético Madrid; back Valencia/Valencia at [1.92] v Sporting Gijón; back Deportivo La Coruña at [2.04] to beat Espanyol

Tobias Gourlay's one-man Juan Carlos Valerón pressure group has been successful. Now he hopes to make some money out of it.

Hard to believe, perhaps, that after a pair of goalless Champions League draws in midweek Barcelona and Atlético Madrid are still headlining the third round of the Spanish league season. But so it goes. And they did complement each other very well in the capital club's 4-3 win at the Vicente Calderón last season. Indeed, there were 14 goals in their two meetings last season; Barcelona won 6-1 at the Camp Nou almost a year ago, and there are, of course, reasons to suppose the [1.35] favourites for Saturday night's clash will take all three points again.

Atlético's supporters have been most disappointed with the team's return of one point from their two league games so far, and were moved to demonstrate against the board even before last weekend's home draw with Racing Santander. The board reminded the fans that Kun Agüero and Diego Forlán were still at the club, but the fans said they had wanted big new signings as well.

The most important signing the board did make was Sergio Asenjo, the young goalkeeper brought in from Valladolid to replace the similarly shaky Leo Franco and Grégory Coupet. Asenjo is off to the Under-20 World Cup with Spain, however, and won't be around for the next few weeks. Coach Abel Resino is also without Raúl García, the hardiest of his midfielders, who is recovering from a fractured toe. Tomáš Ujfaluši and John Heitinga, who were paired together at centre-back to great ill-effect last season, have been split up - Heitinga has moved to Everton - but the careless Czech still has a starting berth.

Barça have scored before half-time in all of their most recent six home and away meetings with Los Colchoneros, and taking Barcelona/Barcelona at evens in the Half Time/Full Time market looks a good thing to do. Twelve of Pep Guardiola's 15 home wins as coach have paid out similar bets, just like three of Resino's last four away defeats.

Real Madrid have it easier than their big rivals this weekend. On the back of a 5-2 Champions League win in Switzerland on Tuesday, they are [1.13] to beat new boys Xerez at the Bernabéu. As mentioned here seven days ago, Los Merengues's defence has not yet solidified, and it conceded yet another set-piece goal against Zurich. Xerez didn't score in either of their first two matches, but there is a longer-term trend that, remarkably, might persuade some punters of the value in the odds-on price ([1.84]) for Over 3.5 Goals on Sunday: in the last two seasons, 10 of 12 visits by promoted teams to the Big Two have produced four goals or more.

Three weeks ago, we discussed how much recovered Valencia were after a summer of good news. They have subsequently won both of their league matches and, although reports this week suggest David Silva may yet make a pact with the Red Devils, Unai Emery's team is worth keeping tabs on. Like Real they have scored six times in their first two games, thanks in large part to Silva's combinations with David Villa and Juan Mata, the three of who have put their names to five of those goals.

Sunday's visitors to the Mestalla are Sporting Gijón, who won at home for this column last week, but have lost 10/12 on the road in 2009. Nine of those games have been lost by half-time, including the opening-day defeat at the Camp Nou. Valencia are [1.92] to make like the champions and be ahead after 45 and 90 minutes.

The final game to think about is Deportivo La Coruña versus Espanyol. Depor boss Miguel Ángel Lotina is finally in accord with this column, playing that trequartista nonpareil, Juan Carlos Valerón, from the start at the Bernabéu, where he scored, and at home to Málaga. The return to fitness of Andrés Guardado, the sophisticated Mexican left-winger, also supports the view that the Galicians can at least emulate last season's seventh-placed finish, in the course of achieving which they won 5/7 against mid-table teams like Espanyol. Excluding a couple of surprising results against the Big Two last season, the Catalans, who are without a point or a goal so far this season, have lost 10 in a row against top-ten finishers. Depor look very nicely priced at [2.04] to win on Saturday.