Betis vs Barcelona prediction: SPAIN: Super Cup betting tips on match 2023-01-11 19:00.
The second semi-final of the Spanish Super Cup will see reigning Copa del Rey winners Real Betis play 13-time winners Barcelona at the King Fahd stadium in Riyadh. Despite Betis’ 2-1 La Liga (LL) win over Rayo Vallecano last weekend leaving them as a proud top four club, manager Manuel Pellegrini is taking this competition seriously, stating Betis “are going to Arabia to try to beat Barcelona.” As further motivation, he will be keen not to add to his already dire 70% career losses against Barça teams!
Betis have traditionally struggled against Barcelona (74 losses from 123 meetings) but their H2H record in Copa del Rey and Super Cup competitions (W4, D1, L4) is a welcome boost. Having trailed just once at half-time this LL season (HT: W6, D9), Betis may have another good start in them to take this game deeper.
That record may be tested, though, as Barcelona have led at the break in most of their LL fixtures (HT: W9, D5, L2). Barça are also likely to be confident after a hard-fought 1-0 win over Atlético Madrid on Monday extended their unbeaten streak in all competitions (W6, D1) whilst re-establishing their three-point lead at the top of LL’s standings. Manager Xavi will be further encouraged by the return of top-striker Robert Lewandowski, who sat out against Atlético due to a ban, particularly as Barcelona haven’t lost a competitive match when he’s scored (W10, D1).
The Catalans may need his strike power to improve their recent poor run in this competition, having lost five of their last seven Super Cup matches (W2). They remain the all-time record champions of this competition, but are yet to win under the current four-team format that was established in 2019/20, something which this team is likely to address.
Key battle: Betis veteran JoaquĂn could be set for a prominent role, having scored a joint-personal best six career goals against Barcelona. His battle could be against Marc-AndrĂ© ter Stegen who has 12 clean sheets from his last 16 LL games for Barcelona but none in his last seven personal H2Hs.
Hot stat: The last nine H2Hs averaged five total goals per game.