Who will secure a place in the final?
On Wednesday, 07.01.2026, FC Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao will face each other in the semi-final of the Spanish Super Cup. In this competition, the four best clubs in Spain regularly face each other and battle it out for a highly prestigious trophy. The Blaugrana have the supposedly weakest opponent to play, because as reigning champions, Hansi Flick’s team automatically faces the fourth-placed team from the previous season.
In theory, however, this match is still a top-class fixture. In this case, however, theory and practice are very far apart, as the Lions are currently only eighth in La Liga with just 24 points from 19 games. The Barcelona vs. Athletic Bilbao odds therefore rightly favor a Barca victory.
Normally, at this point in our analysis, we would look at the home and away records of the two teams. However, as the Super Cup is being held in Saudi Arabia for the second time in a row, this factor is irrelevant for the upcoming match. We will therefore look at the current form of the two clubs and come to a very clear conclusion.
The current leaders of the Spanish top flight have won ten of their last eleven competitive games, losing only to Chelsea FC. By comparison, Ernesto Valverde’s team have won only three of their last eleven games. The only really noteworthy result was the 1-0 win against Atletico Madrid.
Hansi Flick’s team is not only the reigning champion and current leader in La Liga, but also in top form. The Lions’ chances of reaching the final are therefore rather slim, especially since Barca already has a significantly better squad. Strictly speaking, the Blaugrana’s market value is €1.12 billion, which is more than three times the value of the Basque team.
Taking all the facts mentioned so far into account, we cannot ignore the Barcelona vs. Athletic Bilbao tip for a Barca victory. However, in our search for the best possible bet, we have decided against a win bet and are only offering it as an alternative. This is mainly because the main tip, which we will present at the end of our analysis, simply has more value.
Barcelona – Athletic Bilbao Head-to-head comparison / H2H statistics
The picture here is quite similar to that in the previous analysis points. The “Leones” last won a competitive match against Barca on February 6, 2020, and have been waiting for a win for 17 games.
Ernesto Valverde’s team lost twelve games and fought for five draws. Recently, however, the gap has become even clearer, with the Blaugrana winning all of the last four encounters. In addition, the Basques have failed to score in four of their last five games against FCB, scoring only one goal in total. The gap between the two clubs therefore seems to be growing rather than closing. This will also be one of the reasons why, even without home advantage, the betting odds for Barcelona vs. Athletic Bilbao clearly favor a Catalan victory.
Barcelona – Athletic Bilbao Tip
In the last paragraph, we already briefly touched on the direction of our main bet. As mentioned above, the Basques have failed to score in four of their last five encounters and have been unable to create any chances for long periods of the 450 minutes played. In addition, Ernesto Valverde’s team has scored only 22 goals this season, averaging just 0.85 goals per game.
For this reason, we recommend betting on “both teams to score: No” for Barcelona vs. Athletic Bilbao.
Alternatively, the odds for a Barca win are also attractive. Hansi Flick’s team has won eight games in a row, lost only one of its last eleven competitive games, currently leads the Spanish top flight, and also has a much better squad.
In addition, Ernesto Valverde’s team has also fared rather poorly in recent encounters with the Blaugrana, so the bottom line is that there is not a single factor in favor of the Lions. It would take a miracle for the Basques to reach the Super Cup final. As mentioned in the first paragraph of our prediction, you can find the highest odds for a Barca win at Bwin.
