2009年9月3日星期四

Barcelona favored to lift Spain's first title

MADRID, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- FC Barcelona will be the favorite to lift the Spanish Supercup when the club entertains Athletic Club Bilbao in the return leg of the Spanish Super cup on Sunday night.

Barcelona took a big stride to claiming its first silverware of the season when Pep Guardiola's team fought back from a goal down to win 2-1 in Athletic's San Mames Stadium a week ago.

Barcelona looked the better team and with Athletic needing to win 2-0 in Barcelona's home ground, anything other than Barcelona lifting the trophy would be a major surprise.

The Catalan's did suffer a minor setback in midweek, when Manchester City won 1-0 to claim the pre-season Joan Gamper trophy.

However, Guardiola fielded a team made up largely of youngsters in that match and he will rely on more experienced first team regulars on Sunday.

The match will almost certainly see the competitive debut of Barcelona' s record signing Zlatan Ibrahimovich.

Athletic meanwhile also travels with half an eye on other business. The team from the Basque country fought back from 2-1 down to claim a dramatic 3-2 Europa League wins at home to Norwegian outfit Tromso on Thursday.

Nevertheless, Athletic still has to travel to Norway for what promises to be a complicated second leg and faced with an uphill struggle in Camp Nou, coach Joaquin Caparros will almost certainly rest key players such as young striker Oscar de Marcos, who scored Athletic's goal in the first leg of the final.

没有评论:

发表评论