Barcelona v Alavés: Flick wants a response after two defeats in a row, with four defenders out
Spotify Camp Nou, Saturday 31 October, 21:00 CET. Barcelona lost 2-1 at home to Real Madrid last Sunday and 4-2 at PSG before that. They still lead La Liga by two points. Alavés are seventh.
Barcelona host Alavés at the Spotify Camp Nou at 21:00 CET on Saturday 31 October, the late game of La Liga’s eleventh round. It is Barcelona’s first match since they lost the Clásico, the name for any game between Barcelona and Real Madrid, at home last Sunday.
Why it matters
Barcelona are still top. They have 27 points from ten games, nine wins and one defeat, according to the licensed table used across this site. Atlético Madrid are second on 25 and Real Madrid third on 24. Barcelona’s goal difference, goals scored minus goals conceded, is +29, far better than anyone else’s. So one bad week has not cost them the lead. Two bad weeks might.
The two defeats came in five days. On Tuesday 20 October Barcelona lost 4-2 at Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, according to ESPN’s results page. On Sunday 25 October Real Madrid won 2-1 at the Camp Nou: Kylian Mbappé scored in the 41st minute, Raphinha equalised just after the hour, and Madrid scored the winner in the 87th minute, according to ESPN’s report. Real Madrid’s own account of the game says Mbappé scored both goals, which took him to 100 for the club. It was Barcelona’s first league defeat of the season after nine straight wins.
Alavés, from Vitoria in the Basque Country, are seventh on 12 points: three wins, three draws, four defeats. They are the kind of opponent that gives a wounded favourite trouble, and Hansi Flick said as much on Friday.
What Flick said
Barcelona’s coach spoke to the press on Friday, and the club published his main points. “The most important thing tomorrow is to win,” he said. On the opponent: “Alavés are a team that know how to defend well, but we’re Barça and we want to show our best version.”
He asked for calm about the title race. “It’s a long road. It’s at the end of the season that we can win trophies.” On the Clásico, he said the team gave the ball away too cheaply, that defending “isn’t just the defenders’ job, everyone is involved,” and that the squad may not have been fresh enough.
Flick also spoke about Monday’s Ballon d’Or, the award for the best player in the world over the past season, which went to Harry Kane of Bayern Munich. “Harry Kane deserved it, but you already know what I think about Lamine,” he said of Lamine Yamal. “I’m very proud of Lamine. He’s at the level required to win this award.”
Team news
No confirmed team news as of 08:15 CET; La Liga clubs normally publish their line-ups about an hour before kick-off, so expect them around 20:00 CET.
What is known comes from the club. Flick said on Friday that four defenders are out injured, which limits his options at the back, and that Brian Fariñas “could be an option at full-back.” The club’s report did not name the four.
The week around the game
| Date | Fixture | Competition | Kick-off (CET) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat 31 Oct | Barcelona v Alavés | La Liga, round 11 | 21:00 |
| Tue 3 Nov | Barcelona v Aston Villa | Champions League, matchday 4 | 21:00 |
| Fri 6 Nov | Sevilla v Alavés | La Liga, round 12 | 21:00 |
| Sun 8 Nov | Atlético Madrid v Barcelona | La Liga, round 12 | 21:00 |
Times come from the club’s published schedule and the fixture feed used across this site, and can still change. Aston Villa arrive on Tuesday with nine points from three Champions League games, the same as PSG, Liverpool and Real Madrid.
How to read the market
BettingBeast’s prices, captured at 13:54 CET on Friday, had Barcelona at 1.14 to win, the draw at 12.45 and Alavés at 31.81. Decimal odds show how much you get back for every unit staked, including the stake, so 1.14 means a return of 0.14 on top of each 1 risked. As rough probabilities, that is about 88% for a Barcelona win, 8% for a draw and 3% for Alavés.
Two things are worth saying about these numbers. First, they are very short, shorter than Bayern are at home to Dortmund the same evening, which tells you how the market rates a 2-1 Clásico defeat: not much of a dent. Second, the three probabilities add up to slightly less than a whole, which is unusual, because a platform’s margin, its built-in fee, normally pushes the total above a whole. That can happen when a price has not been refreshed for a while. Treat the card as a snapshot from Friday lunchtime and check the live page before reading anything into it.
The goals line, the number of goals the market splits the game at, is 3.5, with over at 1.62 and under at 2.52. Over being the shorter price means the market expects four goals or more, which fits a team with 29 more goals scored than conceded. There is also a handicap of 3.5 goals: Barcelona minus 3.5 at 2.90, Alavés plus 3.5 at 1.49. A handicap gives the weaker team a head start on paper, so that line asks whether Barcelona win by four or more.
What to watch
The first thing is the back four. Four defenders missing and a coach saying the team gave the ball away too easily is a combination that tends to show up in the first 20 minutes, one way or the other. The second is how Alavés set up: Flick expects them to defend deep, and a team that defends deep against Barcelona usually spends the evening waiting for one chance on the counter-attack.
Our lean, phrased as a possibility and not a forecast: with Barcelona likely to have most of the ball and Alavés likely to sit back, a Barcelona win by one or two goals looks more plausible than the four-goal margin the handicap asks for. That is a lean about the shape of the game, not a certainty about anything.
18+. Gambling involves risk and can be addictive. Please gamble responsibly. Prices quoted were correct at the time stated and move. This article is information and opinion, not advice; no outcome is certain. Odds links go to BettingBeast. Help: Gambling Therapy.
- Hansi Flick: 'We want to show our best', FC Barcelona. Read 07:20 CET, 31 Oct 2026.
- Schedule: first team, FC Barcelona. Read 07:24 CET, 31 Oct 2026.
- Barcelona 1-2 Real Madrid (Oct 25, 2026) Game Analysis, ESPN. Read 07:28 CET, 31 Oct 2026.
- Barcelona results, ESPN. Read 07:31 CET, 31 Oct 2026.
- Five consecutive victories, Real Madrid. Read 07:40 CET, 31 Oct 2026.
Plain-text version: barcelona-v-alaves-flick-wants-a-response-after-two-defeats-in-a-row.md