The hosts look the value in what could turn into a fiery encounter at the Vicente Calderón Stadium.
Atletico Madrid v Barcelona – Sunday 15:15, Sky Sports 2
Atletico scored four away goals to take control of their Last-16 tie against Bayer Leverkusen as their purple scoring patch continued, with 14 in their last five across all competitions. Kevin Gameiro is going through his best spell in an Atletico shirt since arriving in the summer, bagging five in his last four and striking up an impressive partnership with compatriot Antoine Griezmann, so they should relish taking on this Barca defence.
Barcelona stumbled over the line against Leganes as Messi, once again, spared their blushes with a last-minute winning penalty. Having been humbled by PSG prior to that, Luis Enrique’s side certainly look short of confidence. The head-to-head record in the league makes for good reading for the Catalans, winning eight of 11 unbeaten encounters since 2011/12. However, they’ve met many more times across all competitions and since 2013/14 it’s a far less dominant W8-D7-L2 in Barca’s favour and they’ve been knocked out of the Champions League twice in recent years by Simeone’s men.
These two have also had their fair share of fiery encounters including three red cards in their latest meeting earlier this month. In fact, there have been eight red cards in the last nine clashes, so a sending off in this match is worth a punt at 2.62. The only top-six Atletico have played at the Vicente Calderon this season was neighbours Real, whom they lost to, but they’ve been prolific in their other fixtures, winning eight of 10 unbeaten. Barca, meanwhile have dropped points in half of their last six on the road and we think Atletico look a generous price draw no bet.
