Making a bet just a week ago would be the easiest decision you had to make. Given the dire performance of Man City during quite some time in EPL and spectacular Barca's winning streak (matching Pep-team best streak of 11 consecutive victories) it was clear that City was nowhere near to equal to Spanish contender. But last weekend seeded a reasonable doubt regarding Barca's transcendence over City, so lets try figure out what to expect today.
This season Barcelona made noticeable transition from tiki-taka to fast, aggressive vertical football with counter attacks, where ball control is no longer crucial for the game. And City (aka English Barca...okay, not that common..All right, I just made it up, but just because of Blue's style with lots of ball possession and through passing) in some way might benefit from theirs experience facing a lot of domestic teams playing, or at least trying to play like that.
I think we will see a high pressure from City during first 15 minutes. If they score they'll park bus and play counter attacks (and they have resources to do so. With Aguero, Silva and Nasri). But if Barcelona scores first this where it comes interesting, City will be forced to play open game and I don't see them standing a chance against Messi, Neymar and Suarez. Remembering that YaYa Toure will miss the game due to his disqualification he got against CSKA I still have very little doubts about positive result for Barcelona, where a tie, other than 0-0, also considered to be the success.
So, to the picks:
Barcelona scores over 1.5 goals total.
Both team to score in the game.
Good luck and enjoy the game!
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