Defending champions Barcelona will hope to snap out of their slump before it’s too late when they visit Valencia (Saturday) in the seventeenth round of the Spanish Football League, while Girona look to continue their impressive season. Deportivo take the lead when they host Alaves (Monday).

Barcelona go into their match with Valencia (eleventh) in an absolutely incredible position, not only because they lost 2-4 to their neighbors Girona in the last stage, but also ended up chasing this result. Belgium’s Royal Antwerp advanced to the last eight of the Champions League with a 2-3 draw at home after a group stage defeat.

But this midweek loss put coach Xavi Hernández in a critical position and under the sword of criticism that fell on him from the Catalan media, including the “Sport” newspaper, which saw “Xevi’s team as not. The style of play,” adding: “They are in a mess.” “The players keep making childish mistakes. And they’re weak on defense. In other words, nothing works. Nothing”.

Xavi’s problems worsened; There are reports that club president Joan Laporta is interfering in the team selection.

“There are pointless tensions,” Xavi said after the embarrassing collapse against Antwerp. I’m worried, that’s normal. The team is not comfortable. We are going through a bad streak and have had two negative results. Feelings are not good. We must criticize ourselves. We have to progress to win titles.

The Catalan giants will need to avoid another defeat against injury-hit Valencia (on Saturday) if they are to keep their hopes of retaining the title alive. Its first defeat against the latter stage.

Xavi believed that his side “deserved” the win against Girona, and “they deserve a lot of credit.” They are seven points ahead of us,” adding: “We want to close the gap, this is our reality… This Barcelona is under construction, although they criticized me for this thing.”

“You have to take a step back,” he promised. So you can take two steps forward.

Barcelona will hope to benefit from the situation of Valencia, who have lost 3 of their last four games, to achieve their sixth consecutive victory over the “Bats” and avoid their first defeat against them since January 2020 (0 – 2 ground at Mestalla).

For its part, Girona finished on the podium at home to Alaves (Monday) after benefiting from a 1-1 draw with Real Betis before returning to the top with a historic win over Barcelona. , looking to maintain his unbeaten run in the eleventh match, followed by his tenth win in the series.

Coach Mitchell Sanchez said: “These players are really making history and that makes me happier than anything else.”

Real Madrid, who face their hosts Villarreal (thirteenth) in revenge for last season’s two league defeats (Sunday), are likely to go into the clash with Girona Alaves, conceding the lead. “Yellow Submarine” 1-2 at its rival’s ground, and 2-2 at “Santiago Bernabeu”. 3.

Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti’s side will go into the match buoyed by a superb display of fighting spirit as they beat Union Berlin 3-2 (Tuesday) to end the Champions League group stage with a clean sheet.

Ancelotti seems satisfied with what he sees from his team: “We have done a very good job in the first half of the season so far.”

Atletico Madrid (third, 5 points behind neighbors Real Madrid) will travel to the Basque Country for a tough clash (Saturday) with Athletic Bilbao (fifth) that could be historic for French striker Antoine Griezmann. Wednesday) in a 2-0 win over Italian Lazio. ) in the Champions League, becoming the club’s all-time top scorer with 173 goals, two goals from Luis Aragonés.

Real Sociedad, who are sixth on goal difference behind Bilbao, will play a heated clash at Real Betis (Sunday), who trail their Basque visitors by 3 points.