Sant Andreu vs Atletico Madrid Predictions

Atletico Madrid face a banana skin Copa del Rey last 32 1st Leg match away to Sant Andreu this Tuesday night. The Tercera Division side will be aiming to cause a huge upset but they were convincingly beaten 6-1 on aggregate when these sides met in this competition in 2013 and Diego Simeone will expect a similar outcome this time around.

Sant Andreu are the lowest ranked side left in the competition with no other Tercera Division sides remaining. Given there are four sections to the Segunda B, there are well over 100 places separating themselves and Atleti on the Spanish football ladder so there is clearly a huge gulf in class but they will be looking forward to welcoming illustrious opponents to the Camp Municipal Narcís Sala in Barcelona again.

Atleti come into the game on the back of a pretty comfortable 2-0 home win over Real Sociedad in La Liga. They needed a response having been hammered 4-0 in the Champions League a few days earlier, the heaviest defeat of Diego Simeone’s reign. That result shouldn’t impact on their ability to progress in that competition and with Atleti on the tails of Barca in La Liga, it has been a satisfactory rather than spectacular start to the season for Los Rojiblancos.

There will be a fair amount of rotation here but Atleti have a number of fringe players who have barely got a look in this season who will be desperate to the make some kind of impression. Gelson Martins and Nikola Kalinic are likely to get rare starts up front. Thomas Lemar, Filipe Luis, Vitolo and Thomas Partey were also only on the bench at the weekend and that means they have some real quality to bring in here and they ought to be far too strong for this Sant Andreu side.

The hosts are simply not used to facing this kind of opposition. They’d not even played in the Copa del Rey in the five years since that last meeting with Atleti and their progress this term hasn’t been totally convincing. All of their three ties have gone to Extra Time and they are yet to even face Segunda Division opponents so this is a huge jump in class for them and their strong home form is likely to count for little given that.

Overall backing Atletico Madrid -2.0 Asian Handicap looks like a pretty safe bet in a game they should win comfortably.

Read our Asian Handicap Guide for more on this market.