Elche CF (tenth, 1pt) vs FC Barcelona (14th, 0pts)
Competitors/Spherical: 2026-27 La Liga, Matchday 2
Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Roony Bardghji, Frenkie de Jong (out), João Cancelo, Alejandro Balde, Rodri, Marc Casadó (doubt)
Elche Outs & Doubts: Yago Santiago, Adam Boayar (doubt)
Date/Time: Sunday, August 23, 2026, 9.30pm CET (Barcelona), 8.30pm BST/WAT (UK & Nigeria), 3.30pm ET, 12.30pm PT (USA), 1am IST (India, Monday)
Venue: Estadio Manuel Martínez Valero, Elche, Spain
Referee: Alejandro Quintero González
VAR: Guillermo Cuadra Fernández
The right way to watch on TV: ABC (USA), Premier Sports activities 1 (UK), SuperSport (Nigeria), Movistar (Spain), others
The right way to watch online: ESPN+ (USA), Premier Sports activities Participant (UK), FanCode (India), Movistar+ (Spain), others
The wait is over: precisely three months after their closing match of final season, a brand new journey begins for Barcelona because the reigning back-to-back La Liga champions start the 2026-27 marketing campaign with a match in opposition to Elche on the Manuel Martínez Valero Stadium on Sunday Night time Fútbol.
Barça come into this one searching for a profitable begin to what’s anticipated to be a really powerful title protection, with Actual Madrid off to a successful begin at Espanyol and promising to offer the Catalans all they will deal with beneath José Mourinho.
Profitable the league title is at all times the primary precedence for Barça, however there are massive expectations in Europe and the summer time switch window remains to be open because the Blaugrana seek for a world-class striker and make a number of different strikes available in the market, so there’s a lot on the minds of followers because the season is about to start.
Sunday’s conflict in opposition to Elche kicks off a really busy interval with eight video games in 29 days throughout La Liga and the Champions League. Since Barça’s opening match final weekend was postponed because of the sucess of the Blaugrana representatives on the World Cup, Hansi Flick’s aspect will likely be pressured to make up for misplaced time with loads of video games in a short while earlier than the primary prolonged worldwide break of the season.
The coach in all probability welcomes the busy calendar so he can provide loads of early minutes to his big-name gamers who’ve spent nearly no time on the coaching pitch, and Hansi has already warned Barça followers that issues might not run so easily over the following 4 weeks because the squad will get right into a rhythm.
Flick additionally stated there aren’t any excuses to not decide up wins within the meantime, nevertheless, so he expects his gamers to indicate up and discover a method to get the job accomplished on Sunday. Their opponents are Elche, who survived relegation in dramatic style final season and can look to keep away from the drop as soon as once more.
Elche have been essentially the most nice be careful of all of the relegation candidates final season as they remained absolutely dedicated to the concept of enjoying high-intensity, high-possession attacking soccer beneath former Barça assistant Eder Sarabia, who did a beautiful job and caught to his concepts till the top and was rewarded for it.
Sarabia determined to step down from the top coach position for psychological well being causes on the finish of final season, and was changed by Martín Anselmi who remains to be younger and unproven in Europe’s prime leagues regardless of a few good jobs in South America.
Anselmi appears dedicated to sticking to Sararbia’s ideas a minimum of to begin, as Elche performed the identical 3-5-2 formation because the earlier boss and had over 60% possession in a 1-1 draw away to Deportivo A Coruña at Riazor final weekend.
The issue for Elche is that they misplaced their prime three scorers from final season and changed them with principally younger and unproven forwards on the prime flight degree, so they could wrestle to show their attacking goal into objectives this season.
Elche ought to nonetheless be a troublesome check for Barça, nevertheless, particularly a Barça group on the very begin of the season with a number of key gamers nonetheless looking for rhythm. Elche’s house environment was key to their survival final season, they usually’ll undoubtedly push their group to trigger an enormous upset in opposition to the champs.
It’s time for a brand new journey, and Barça should begin the immediately. It won’t look fairly, however there’s a job to be accomplished.
Barcelona (4-3-3): Joan; Eric, Christensen, Martín, Cancelo; Fermín, Bernal, Espart; Yamal, Hamza, Raphinha
Elche (3-5-2): Dituro; Chust, Affengruber, Redondo; Sangaré, Villar, Aguado, Neto, Valera; Houary, Niño
Elche confirmed within the opener they continue to be an attack-minded aspect who can provide Barça loads of hassle, however I’m trusting the nice guys to discover a method to begin the season with all three factors: 3-1 to the guests.
