Espanyol vs Atletico Madrid Predictions

• Espanyol avoided defeat in 11 of their final 13 home games last term
• Atletico Madrid failed to win seven of their final 10 away La Liga games in 2024-25
• Atletico Madrid have not won any of their last four matches against Espanyol

Espanyol can keep Atleti at bay

Espanyol and Atletico Madrid square off on the opening weekend of La Liga with the home side a big price to pull off a surprise win. Los Pericos finished 14th last term, 11 places and 34 points worse off than Diego Simeone’s side, but they have had a great pre-season under Manolo Gonzalez.

Wins over Southampton, Union Berlin and Wolfsburg were followed by a deserved 2-2 draw against a half-strength Newcastle side at St James’ Park last weekend. Beyond those scorelines, there is fresh optimism for the future at the club after a summer takeover and some clever recruitment.

Goalkeeper Joan Garca, one of the top performers in La Liga last term, opted to jump ship early on but Espanyol have secured a quality replacement in Marko Dmitrovic. They held on to top scorer Javi Puado and recruited Miguel Rubio on a free transfer to shore up their defence.

Simeone has made sweeping changes

Atletico, meanwhile, made sweeping changes after an inconsistent campaign in which they struggled to keep pace with Barcelona and fell short in the big games against Real Madrid. Simeone will be integrating up to eight new players in the opening weeks of the campaign and it may take time for things to gel.

Defenders David Hancko and Matteo Ruggeri could make La Liga debuts in defence on Sunday with Thiago Almada, Johnny Cardoso and Alex Baena all set to line-up together in midfield. They earned a 2-0 friendly win at Newcastle last weekend, but are too short in the betting to win at a ground where they have fallen short of victory on their past two visits.

Back Espanyol to avoid defeat, as they did in 11 of their final 13 home games last term, with a 1-1 draw a decent shot in correct score markets.