Barcelona returns to La Liga action on Sunday with a tough road game against Real Betis, which has lost just three league games all season. Manuel Pellegrini has seen side become the draw specialist of the Spanish top flight.
Bookmaker 10bet offers odds at 3.90 for Betis to draw another game, while the odds are at 4.20 for the home side to win and 1.833 for Barcelona to get the three points.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: January 19th, 7:00 P.M. (EST)
Betis has drawn exactly half of its 20 league matches so far, including five of the last eight. Having kicked off 2024 with a 2-1 loss to Celta Vigo and a 1-0 win over Granada, Los Verdiblancos have gone back-to-back games without a draw for just the third time all season. Across all the top five leagues in Europe, Betis’ haul of 10 draws has been beaten by only Udinese, which has drawn 12 Serie A games in 2023-24.
Bizarrely, there hasn’t been a league draw in a fixture between Betis and Barcelona since 2017. Barca has dominated the match-up with 11 wins to two and even beat Betis in the reserve fixture this season 5-0. It was a horror show for Pellegrini’s men at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys in September, but Betis has been solid throughout the rest of the campaign.
Barca runs into a side that has conceded only four times in its last seven league outings. In fact, 11 of the 20 goals scored against Betis in La Liga this season came in the first five matches of the season. It’s very difficult to break down the team, and this certainly won’t be a walk in the park for Barcelona.
Xavi takes his troops to Seville only a week after an embarrassing 4-1 defeat in El Clasico in the Spanish Super Cup final. The team has suffered multiple setbacks since the start of last month, and the former Barcelona captain desperately needs to get a good run of results together to stay on as manager.
Robert Lewandowski crushed it against Betis in the first meeting of the season, recording a goal and two assists. Can he get his season back on track on Sunday? The two-time European Golden Shoe winner has scored in only two of his last 11 league appearances. However, Lewandowski netted once in both Super Cup clashes last week, which should be an encouraging sign for Barcelona.
