{"id":1537,"date":"2026-09-06T00:58:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T00:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/?p=1537"},"modified":"2026-09-06T00:58:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T00:58:59","slug":"rodri-eyes-laliga-century-as-barcelona-chase-top-spot-at-mestalla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/?p=1537","title":{"rendered":"Rodri eyes LaLiga century as Barcelona chase top spot at Mestalla"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/onefootball.com\/en\/team\/barcelona-5\">Barcelona<\/a> can go top this afternoon at Mestalla, 16:15 on Movistar, after Real Madrid faltered in Seville on Friday and Atl\u00e9tico in Bilbao yesterday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>AS reports that victory would put Hansi Flick\u2019s side three points clear of Mourinho\u2019s team and five ahead of Simeone\u2019s after four matchdays.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>In his pre-match press conference, Flick said one of his immediate aims is to reach the late September break with maximum points, though <a href=\"https:\/\/onefootball.com\/en\/team\/valencia-143\">Valencia<\/a> must be beaten first.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>The hosts\u2019 supporters plan to stay outside until the 19th minute in protest at the club\u2019s transfer business, so Barcelona will need to manage an unusual atmosphere and find their rhythm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>On that front, <a href=\"https:\/\/onefootball.com\/en\/player\/rodri-173112\">Rodri<\/a> looks set to be key. The midfielder is in line to start for the first time since joining, which would also bring up his 100th <a href=\"https:\/\/onefootball.com\/en\/competition\/laliga-10\/fixtures\">LaLiga<\/a> appearance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>He has 63 games for Villarreal, 34 for Atl\u00e9tico and two so far with Bar\u00e7a, totalling 99 in LaLiga, alongside 298 for <a href=\"https:\/\/onefootball.com\/en\/team\/manchester-city-209\">City<\/a> in the Premier League.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>So far he has played the final half hour against Athletic and Rayo. To build fitness, Flick could give him around an hour at Valencia before a first full outing that, according to his specific preparation plan, would come against Feyenoord on Wednesday in the Champions League.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Rodri joined later than most team-mates, so his introduction has been gradual.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><em>\u201cArtificial intelligence was used to assist in creating this article based on reporting from the original source quoted.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/onefootball.com\/en\/news\/rodri-eyes-laliga-century-as-barcelona-chase-top-spot-at-mestalla-43409703\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barcelona can go top this afternoon at Mestalla, 16:15 on Movistar, after Real Madrid faltered&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2Fv22Fphotobooth2Fcms2Fen2F434097033Fdate2026-09-06.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportbulletin.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}