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Robert Lewandowski scored twice within five minutes either side of half-time to help Barcelona come from behind to defeat Valencia 2-1 on La Liga’s opening weekend. They were one of just four sides to win in the opening round, making it five consecutive league wins for Barça dating back to last season. It was also a winning La Liga start for new manager Hansi Flick, who seems to bring the best out of Lewandowski, with the veteran striker now boasting 85 goals in 72 games under Flick, going back to their time together at Bayern Munich.
While their home games will again be played at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys as the renovation of the Camp Nou continues, Barcelona will be hoping that doesn’t hurt their impressive home record against Athletic Bilbao. The Catalans haven’t lost a home La Liga H2H since November 2001 (W19, D3), which is their best unbeaten home run against the Basque side.
Athletic were basking in the success of winning last season’s Copa del Rey trophy for the first time in 40 years along with their equal-best league finish since 2013/14, but dropped points in a 1-1 draw against Getafe last Thursday. The positive coming out of that stalemate was that it marked a ninth consecutive league game that Ernesto Valverde’s side had scored in.
That could be good news for Athletic, who have failed to score a league goal against Barcelona since August 2021 (D1, L4). Being on the road may not be a bad omen in that quest, as the visitors won their first away league fixture of each of their last two campaigns. Extending that record would see Valverde make it three games unbeaten in personal H2Hs (W1, D1) coming on the back of five straight defeats.
Key battle: Marc-André ter Stegen must love playing Athletic, having picked up a personal-high 11 clean sheets in just 15 league H2Hs. Looking to dent that record could be Iñaki Williams, who has scored a joint-personal high seven goals in H2Hs, although all but one of those have come in cup competitions.
Hot stat: The last time Barcelona lost their first home league match of a new La Liga season was to Hércules in 2010 (Barcelona: W12, D1).
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