Barcelona have requested that their clash with Real Valladolid be brought forward in order to help with their Champions League semi-final preparations. Despite the Blaugrana sending a formal request to La Liga, the league are set to reject their petition.
On Friday, Barcelona manager Hansi Flick expunged a furious rant about the scheduling in Spain, demanding a conversation with those in charge of the fixture list, and referring to it as ‘a joke’. This was then backed up by a statement from Barcelona on the matter. The main frustration for Flick was that their Liga clash with Real Valladolid was scheduled for the 21:00 CEST at the Nuevo Jose Zorrilla, meaning they will not arrive back in Barcelona until the early hours of the morning, just two days out from their Champions League semi-final second leg with Inter in Milan.
As per Diario AS, Barcelona have sent a formal letter to La Liga requesting that the game be moved to one of the slots at 14:00, 16:15 or 18:30, to allow them time to travel back to Barcelona without impacting their sleep. Yet MD say that La Liga have no intention of altering their schedule for Valladolid-Barcleona clash, which was originally due to take place at 14:00 on Sunday, before the European fixtures were announced. The reason given is that Barcelona did not make their request to La Liga once the fixture was announced, but 14 days after.
Thiago: “Given the players and the project, yes, I expected this level of performance. In the end, it was about giving them the support to play the way they are playing now, and providing a slightly more dynamic style of play than they were used to. If you give that kind of edge…
— barcacentre (@barcacentre) April 21, 2025
It is certainly a damning comparison for La Liga with the likes of Ligue 1, the Premier League or the Bundesliga. Paris Saint-Germain have had a fixture posptoned entirely from the weekend in order to facilitate their Champions League preparations, while German and Italian sides are regularly scheduled for Friday nights in order to give teams more time to prepare in Europe – although this would not be possible in this case, with the first leg taking place on Wednesday.
