Stats: How Barca have historically fared against Athletic Club on opening day

August 16, 2019 By Ali M.

Topics: Lionel Messi, Athletic Club, Barcelona, La Liga

They might be without Messi, the stats hand the Blaugrana lots of optimism.

Barcelona kicks off the 2019/20 La Liga season on Friday with a trip to Athletic Club. Anyone who knows anything about the Spanish Primera Division knows that a visit to San Mamés is never an easy feat but how will the Blaugrana fair?

Fortunately for the Blaugrana, history favors the reigning champions. Not only have they won more than half of their encounters in all competitions, but the Catalan giants have also outscored their opponents by almost 100 goals.

A look at their record when facing each other on the opening day makes for an interesting read. This will be the 10th times that these two sides begin the campaign by facing each other and it will be only the third time this has occurred in the 21st century.

The first time this occurred was way back in the 1930-31 season. Barcelona won that encounter 6-3, the first of six victories in the aforementioned nine run-ins. The Blaugrana would go without a victory in the next two instances in Matchday 1 of the 1943-44 and 1949-50 seasons but would return to winning ways in 1959-60.

Barcelona’s record vs Athletic Club in opening day fixtures

Since beating Barcelona 3-1 in Matchday 1 in 1949-50, the Basque club have only been able to pick up one point against the Spanish giants on opening day. That came courtesy of a 1-1 draw in 1970-71. The most recent encounter was in 2015-16, with Luis Suarez scoring the only goal of the game.

One thing that will work in Athletic Club’s favor is the absence of Lionel Messi. The Argentine will play no part in Friday’s encounter after being left out of the squad due to a calf injury.

This will be the first time in 10 years that Barcelona will play their opening match without their talisman attacker. The last time this happened was in August 2009 during Pep Guardiola’s reign.

Given the fact that the Argentine has scored 14 goals, including five braces and a hat-trick, in nine opening games since 2009 shows how important he is. Valverde will be hoping that they can cope in his absence in what should be an interesting tie.