Barcelona Betting preview

The worst season in ten years

Last season was one of the least successful for Barcelona in the last ten years. In spite of various quality back-ups, play and status were far below expected. One of the biggest reasons was certainly the tension between the former members of the club, former worlds best player Ronaldinho and coach Rijkaard, and we shouldn't disregard the often absence of Etoo due to injuries and African Cup of Nations last spring. Third place is considered an insult at Montjuic, so the club have done everything to prevent such shame from repeating

New and famous names

As it usually happens, several famous names arrived at Camp Nou this summer. Dani Alves from sevillaand Martin Caceres from Villarreal will be in charge to replace and compensate for van bronkhorst and excellent Zambrota, while Ronaldinho's transfer will be a chance for Hleb and Keita to show their potential. Yaya Toure came from Arsenal to Barcelona to reinforce the slow defense. The base of the team is still the same, Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Etoo, Tieri Henri and the others will have the opportunity to imporve the faint impression they made last year. Squad's new boss is Catalonian Josep Guardiola former star from the first half of the 90s when Barcelona won five successive Primera titles and after many attempts reached the European chmpion title for the first time since 1992. Many doubt the ability of the young coach to get Barcelona back on the tresk Frenk Rijkaard brought them several years ago. The inexperiecne is Guardiola's biggest foe and many will closely inspect each move of his. There are a lot of crtics in spain, so he will definitely have a very hot season in case things don't go as everyone in the capital of Catalonia expect.

In

Seydou Keita (Sevilla), Gerard Pique (Manchester United), Martin Caceres (Villarreal), Jose Manuel Pinto (Celta Vigo), Daniel Alves (Sevilla), Henrique (Palmeiras), Aliaksandr Hleb (Arsenal)

Out

Deco (Chelsea), Gianluca Zambrotta (Milan), Edmilson (Villarreal), Giovanni Dos Santos (Tottenham), Lilian Thuram (retired), Santiago Ezquerro (Osasuna), Ronaldinho (Milan), Oleguer (Ajax)

Roster is terrific- the squad is yet to be seen

Based on the named Barcelona squad has, it would be common sense to expect title contention on all three battlefields. Fans' biggest wish is definitely Primera and teh Champions League, but objectivelly, it will be very hard in the competition with several very strong and experienced English and Italian teams that seem to be getting back on the winning trek, to reach the finals. Objectively, Catalonian side's extent in europe this season could be semi-finals. We shouldn't forget that unlike Real madrid, Barcelona were the foundation of the national squad that triumphed on EURO, as wellas the fact that their bets player, Lionel Messi is coming back from the Olympics only few days before Primera starts. And all of this together with the mentioned insecurity about coach Guardiola's potential affects the predictions about Barcelona's play this year to be quite uncertain.

Our tip: To be worst then Real Madrid
Odds 1.72
Bookmaker: Bet365