Athletic Club vs Atletico Madrid Predictions & Match Preview

Athletic Club vs Atletico Madrid predictions and match preview for Saturday’s LaLiga fixture. Read on for analysis, the head-to-head, team news and predicted lineups as Atleti travel to San Mames.

Athletic Club vs Atletico Madrid Preview

Two of Spanish football’s most historic clubs clash on Saturday night at San Mames with Athletic and Atletico meeting. Both sides are pushing for European qualification with Athletic needing a victory to boost their hopes of Conference League football in 2022/23 while Atleti are looking to confirm their place in next season’s Champions League.

Athletic do need to pull off an upset here and finish the season very well to stand a chance of piping Villarreal to 7th, which will now almost certainly be good enough for European qualification after Betis triumphed in the Copa del Rey Final. The Yellow Submarine are 4 points better off heading into this matchday and Athletic may live to regret their failure to win the meeting between the clubs at the Ceramica earlier this month when Villarreal named a virtual B team.

A 2-0 home defeat against Celta in their subsequent fixture was equally damaging but Athletic did respond well by racing into a 3-0 lead at Cadiz in their most recent league outing. They almost threw that away too though with the strugglers fighting back to nearly level the game in 2nd Half Stoppage Time but Marcelino’s side hung on for a 3-2 win.

As for Atleti, their resurgent form in the early spring has deserted them a bit of late with just 1 win from their last 5 games in all competitions. They failed to score in 4 of those matches too including a disappointing 0-0 draw at home to Granada last time out, where they had 22 attempts on goal, but only hit the target with one of them.

They do still hold a 4 point advantage on 5th placed Betis and should seal Champions League qualification from this position. However it could be an interesting summer at the Wanda Metropolitano with some big decisions to be made at both ends of the pitch. Luis Suarez is expected to depart but they are still likely to opt to extend Antoine Griezmann’s loan despite his patchy form this term since his return from Barcelona. There are also likely to be moves to sign a right-back following the January departure of Kieran Trippier.

Head to Head

• Last 6 Competitive Meetings: 2 Athletic Wins, 2 Atletico Madrid Wins, 2 Draws.
• Atletico Madrid haven’t won any of the last 3 meetings.
• Athletic won a Supercopa Semi-Final between the sides 2-1 in January.
• They’ve also taken 7 points from their last 3 home league games against Atleti.

Team News

Latest LaLiga Injuries & Suspensions

Possible Lineups

Athletic Club vs Atletico Madrid Predictions

Score Prediction: Athletic Club 1-0 Atletico Madrid

Atleti appear to have taken a few steps back again in recent weeks and look more like the unconvincing side that has stumbled their way through much of this campaign. They may just come unstuck here against an Athletic side that has a pretty good record when it comes to turning over the big boys at San Mames, although admittedly much of that recent success has been in the cup.

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