The race for the title is not officially over but Barcelona have to win their remaining three games and hope Real Madrid lose all theirs if they are to retain the La Liga title.
Barcelona, who were dumped out of the Champions League at the semi-final stage on Tuesday, head over to Rayo Vallecano hoping to end a recent poor run of form.
To make matters worse manager Pep Guardiola announced on Friday that he would be stepping down as the man in charge at the end of the season after four years in charge.
The Catalan giants are currently in second place with 81 points, seven behind league leaders Real Madrid, and should have no real problems in securing their 26th win of the campaign.
Rayo Vallecano, on the other hand, are down in 15th place on the ladder in Spain’s top division and they will be hoping to add more misery to Barca’s season by improving on their already collected points total of 40 points.
Rayo Vallecano head into this clash on the back of a 2-1 away defeat against Sporting Gijon with Mikel Labaka grabbing their only goal.
Barcelona’s last outing was the very important Champions League semi-final second leg with Chelsea. Barca drew that game 2-2 thanks to goals from Andreas Iniesta and Sergio Busquets, but they went out 3-2 on aggregate after losing the first leg at Stamford Bridge.
These two last locked horns in La Liga back in November last year with Barcelona running out 4-0 winners thanks to goals from David Villa, Lionel Messi and Alexis Sanchez.
Barcelona are seen as firm favourites to win this match and can be backed at 4/11 with Bet365, while Rayo Vallecano are rank outsiders at 7/1 with the draw on offer at 15/4.
This match comes under bet365’s “Bore Draw” promotion. Place a pre-match correct score, half-time/full-time or scorecast bet and if the match finishes 0-0 all losing bets on those markets will be refunded.
