Atletico de Madrid and FC Barcelona

-Atletico will look to get back to winning ways against a Raphinha-less FC Barcelona in the first of their three upcoming meetings over the next 10 days-

TOKYO, Apr. 1, 2026 /LALIGA=Kyodo JBN/ -- LALIGA EA SPORTS fans in Japan are in for a treat this weekend, as fourth-placed Atletico de Madrid take on leaders FC Barcelona at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano on Sunday morning in one of the biggest fixtures of the LALIGA season. The hosts will look to bounce back after a 3-2 derby defeat to Real Madrid, in which Ademola Lookman and Nahuel Molina's strikes were not enough to deny a brace from Vinicius Junior and a goal from Fede Valverde. Meanwhile, Barca edged past Rayo Vallecano 1-0 thanks to a Ronald Araujo header, extending their unbeaten run to eight games across all competitions.

With just nine matchdays remaining, FC Barcelona will look to protect or extend their four-point lead at the summit. Having won 17 of their last 19 league games, Hansi Flick's side are chasing a second straight title, but a blow has arrived in the form of Raphinha's injury. The Brazilian winger has been involved in 23 wins from 27 games this season, contributing 19 goals and eight assists in 31 appearances, second only to Lamine Yamal (21 goals) in the scoring charts. He has also netted in both victories over Atletico this campaign. With Raphinha ruled out for several weeks, Marcus Rashford is expected to step in on the left flank.

Diego Simeone's side have been formidable at home, winning 13 of 15 league games at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano, where they also thrashed Barca 4-0 in the Copa del Rey in February. Only Barcelona (45) have accumulated more home points than Atlético (40) this season. This will be the fourth meeting of the season, with Barca having won three of the last five head-to-heads across all competitions.

This clash kicks off a remarkable ten-day stretch, with the two sides also set to meet in both legs of their all-Spanish Champions League quarterfinal in the following week.

Be sure to tune in for Atletico de Madrid vs FC Barcelona this Sunday morning at 04:00am JST, available live on DAZN and U-NEXT.

About LALIGA

LALIGA is the largest football ecosystem in the world. It is a private sports association composed of the 20 public limited sports companies (SADs) and clubs of LALIGA EA SPORTS and the 22 of LALIGA HYPERMOTION, and is responsible for organising professional football competitions in Spain. LALIGA has over 258 million followers globally across social networks, on 16 platforms and in 20 different languages. With its headquarters in Madrid (Spain) it has the most extensive international network of any sports property and is present in 35 countries through 8 offices. The organisation carries out its social work through its foundation FUNDACION LALIGA and was the world's first professional football league to establish a league for intellectually challenged footballers: LALIGA GENUINE Moeve.

Source: LALIGA