Barça look to avoid a major upset and reach the Cup semis
Albacete Balompié vs FC Barcelona
Competition/Round: 2025-26 Copa del Rey, Quarter-Finals
Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Gavi, Pedri, Raphinha, Andreas Christensen (out)
Albacete Outs & Doubts: Higinio Marin (doubt)
Date/Time: Tuesday, February 3, 2026, 9pm CET/WAT (Barcelona & Nigeria), 8pm GMT (UK), 3pm ET, 12pm PT (USA), 1.30am IST (India, Wednesday)
Venue: Estadio Carlos Belmonte, Albacete, Spain
Referee: José Luis Munuera Montero
VAR: Valentín Pizarro Gómez
How to watch on TV: Not Available (USA), Premier Sports 1 (UK), Startimes (Nigeria), TVE La 1 (Spain), others
How to watch online: ESPN+ (USA), Premier Sports Player (UK), FanCode (India), RTVE Play (Spain), others
Following an important and very strange win over Elche at the weekend in La Liga, Barcelona turn their attentions to the Copa del Rey as the Blaugrana play a huge quarter-final against second tier Albacete at the Carlos Belmonte Stadium on Tuesday night.
Hansi Flick’s side will be considered big favorites to advance, naturally, but you don’t need to dig too deep to find out why this will be a very tricky test for the Blaugrana: Albacete are coming off one of the biggest upsets in recent Spanish Cup history by knocking out Real Madrid in the last round in a dramatic tie that had two stoppage-time goals and a truly remarkable win by the La Liga 2 side in front of their home crowd.
Now they look for another major upset on their dream Cup run by trying to knock out the mighty Barça, and they’ll have the crowd in their favor again as the entire city prepares for a historic night. Albacete’s win over Madrid gave them a big boost in the league too, with three straight wins that gave them huge relief in the relegation fight and now have them sitting comfortably in mid-table.
Albacete will likely follow the same gameplan that they used against Los Blancos, with a back five and a very low block trying to exploit mistakes from the favorites and looking to use the energy of the crowd to their benefit. Barça are generally in a much less chaotic spot than Madrid, but their defense is inherently vulnerable in its nature and can be exploited by any team, even a second tier one, if the Catalans don’t use the ball well and don’t press appropriately.
It’ll be up to the Catalans to avoid any semblance of drama and the possibility of an upset by being much more clinical than they were against Elche. If Barça have even half of the quality chances that we saw at the weekend but improve their finishing this time around, they should win this relatively comfortably.
But this will still be a Cup tie away from home against a team knowing they can make the impossible a reality, so Barça must be ready for a real battle and need to take their chances to avoid becoming the latest laughing stock after a shocking loss to Albacete.
Let’s dance.
POSSIBLE LINEUPS
Barcelona (4-2-3-1): Joan; Eric, Araujo, Martín, Cancelo; De Jong, Bernal; Yamal, Fermín, Rashford; Lewandowski
Albacete (5-3-2): Lizoain; Aguado, Moreno, Villar, Neva, Bernabéu; Capi, Meléndez, Pacheco; Betancor, Lazo
PREDICTION
Albacete obviously deserve respect for what they did in the last round, but Barça will go into the game knowing exactly what could happen if they don’t take it seriously. So I believe they will take this seriously from the start and be clinical enough to secure a relatively drama-free win and a spot in the semis: 3-0 to the good guys.
Category: General Sports
