Barca to win Spanish title if Real lose

Posted Saturday, April 09, 2011 by Supersport.com

Athletic Bilbao are planning to put Real Madrid out of their Spanish league misery on Saturday.

Real are already eight points behind runaway leaders Barcelona, and anything less than victory in old San Mames will hand to Barca their third straight Liga title on a plate.

The whites will travel to Bilbao in good heart after Tuesday's 4-0 Champions League slaughter of Tottenham. Coach Jose Mourinho will be tempted to rest Marcelo and Cristiano Ronaldo after deciding to field them at less than a hundred per cent on Tuesday.

In the continued absence of Karim Benzema, Emmanuel Adebayor - who was the two-goal hero on Tuesday - will lead the Real attack.

Bilbao, for their part, are sweating on the fitness of defender Fernando Amorebieta. Igor Martinez is also out, but youngsters Ibai Gomez, Aitor Fernandez and Jon Aurtenetxe are all fit again.

The Basque Lions are joint fifth with Sevilla, and keen to return to the Europa League after a season's absence from Europe. They have beaten Real five times at home in the last 10 years, and once away.

"It will be a really tight and tense game," said Real assistant coach Aitor Karanka, who played for both teams. "There is always something special in the air for these Bilbao-Madrid games."

Later on Saturday, Barca, coming off a 5-1 demolition of Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League, should have few problems at home to bottom team Almeria.

Almeria crashed 3-1 at home to Bilbao on Monday and sacked short- lived coach Jose Luis Oltra the next day, bringing in Roberto Olabe.

"I know I have a difficult task in front of me," said Olabe on Wednesday. "I just have to look at the table to know that."

Almeria are three points adrift of Malaga and Hercules, and four points behind Zaragoza.

Barca will be without Victor Valdes and Sergio Busquets, both of whom deliberately earned themselves a fourth yellow card at the end of the 1-0 win away to Villarreal, in order to be "clean" for the April 16 "Clasico" away to Real.

Saturday's other game will see Sevilla away to Mallorca.

The big game on Sunday is an east coast clash between Valencia and Villarreal. Valencia are three points ahead of Villarreal in the battle for third place.

Sunday's other games are Malaga v Deportivo La Coruna, Hercules v Espanyol, Racing Santander v Levante, Atletico Madrid v Real Sociedad and Sporting Gijon v Osasuna.

On Monday, lowly Zaragoza take on free-falling Getafe, who will join the relegation dogfight if they suffer another defeat.