Villareal

Since 1966, Ricardo Pastor, a veteran sports journalist, predicts in detail the final position in the league table for First Division clubs in Spain. Everyone use to do the same every Sunday along the season but the merit of Ricardo Pastor is that he announces his predictions when still 10 Day matches must be played and also the most important is that in 42 years predictions he has only gone wrong 4 years and, honestly, the failures have been due to completely unusual performance of most of the clubs during the last matches of the league. One example was last season (2006/07) when FC Barcelona squandered his advantage over Real Madrid during last matches (unforeseen points looses at home in front of Betis and Espanyol among others abnormal results of both Barça and Madrid). In the predictions of Ricardo Pastor there is a lot of objective study about the performance of clubs along the season and overall doing a rigorous study and prediction for the results to be achieved during the last 10 matches. 90% success in 42 years in the variable world of football is a fantastic percentage very difficult to obtain.
His predictions for the present season, made on 20th March, are as follows: Real Madrid with 81 points will obtain the championship followed by FC Barcelona with 77 points, Villarreal with 71 points, Sevilla with 65 points (all 4 teams will obviously play next Champions League next season), Atletico Madrid with 64 points and Espanyol with 59 points (both will play for UEFA Cup). Ricardo also predicts that the three clubs that will go down to Second Division will be Valladolid with 42 points, Murcia with 37 points and Levante with 29 points.
So in eight weeks time or even less we will know the grade of success of above advanced predictions. Wait and see!

During last 40 years FC Barcelona has always won the Spanish Cup every of the four times since then that the year had finished with number “8”: 1968, 1978, 1988 and 1998! This year is 2008 and the big question is: will Barcelona maintain fidelity to the statistics and will win the Spanish Cup? It is not easy to give the correct answer because although the sequences of numbers, football never has been a reliable game in any aspect.
Anyway and until now the performance of FC Barcelona in the Spanish Cup this season, although has not been spectacular, it is at least in the right way to obtain the trophy: 6 matches played in total, against Alcoyano from Second Division B in last 32 phase (0-3 and 2-2); against Sevilla in last 16 phase (1-1 and 0-0) and against Villarreal in last 8 phase (0-0 and 1-0). Total 4 draws and 2 wins.
Now FC Barcelona is only 3 matches far to become champion: two leg semi-final phase in front of Valencia (February 27 in Camp Nou and March 19 in Mestalla Stadium) and, if winner, then the final match, probably in Madrid on April 16, against the winner of the other semi-final between Getafe and Racing Santander.
So in about 10 weeks we will know if FC Barcelona knows to play in favour of the statistics.