Barcelona vs. Eibar: Date, Time, Live Stream, TV Info and Preview
Barcelona have started the 2014-15 campaign in fine fettle and are the pace setters in La Liga.
The Catalan club have 19 points from their first seven league games, per Sky Sports, and now face the buoyant challenge of an in-form Eibar side.
Eibar sit an impressive ninth in the table, having won points from five of their seven matches. They are certainly one of the surprise packages of the season so far.
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Here is how you can catch the action from this Spanish game, with TV and stream information:
When: Saturday, Oct. 18, at 7 p.m. BST/2 p.m. ET
Where: Camp Nou, Barcelona, Spain.
TV Info: Live on Sky Sports 5 & HD (UK only), beIN Sports (US only)
Live Stream: Sky Go (UK only) beIN Sports Connect (US only)
Lionel Messi To Celebrate 10 Years At Barca With Eibar Win?
It is incredible to think that Lionel Messi has been strutting his stuff at the Camp Nou for 10 whole years now. The magician celebrated his milestone with Barcelona this week, with so much still to come from the Argentinian.
Messi will now do his best to continue his team's fine start to the season with a win against an Eibar side who are proving worthy opponents, despite their lack of status and wealth.
The little genius' club statistics are outrageous, as reported by Peter Jenson of the Mail Online, on Thursday: He has scored 249 goals in 284 appearances, with a minutes per goal ratio of 89.29.
This record might statistically make him one of the greats but it is his overall brilliance which has seen him become the best of his generation.
And soon Barca will have a South American strike force that will scare every team on the planet, as Luis Suarez joins Messi and Neymar to form a fantasy-football attack.
Messi is currently just two goals behind Athletic Bilbao legend Telmo Zarra's Spanish league goal record and a hat-trick against Eibar will see the Barcelona talisman claim top spot, per Jenson.
Former Barca forward Ludovic Giuly recently spoke to the club's official website about his former team-mate, saying he always knew that the player would achieve extraordinary things:
"Leo was just so good both in training as well as the matches that I was totally convinced, I would have sat myself on the bench in a lot of matches so he could play more. Messi has things that other players don't have, he's a superstar, with natural ability, he's an unbelievable player, the best in the world, and I knew it 10 years ago when I was here.
"
If Messi continues his own fine start to the season, Eibar will not be able to stop him in front of an adoring Camp Nou crowd. The Argentina captain will want to put on a show for his public and Eibar's fine start to the campaign could be derailed as a result.
Match Preview
It was only a few years ago that Eibar could have dreamed of being in the position that they now find themselves in. Currently a top-10 side in the league, the club are one of the smallest to have ever featured in La Liga.
Eibar's home capacity is just 5,200, with average attendances of 2,901 last year, per Andy West of BBC Sport.
Now they face the challenge of one of the planet's biggest clubs as their economically assembled team travel to the Catalan super club.
Eibar's first-team budget is just £9.4 million, and now they must somehow stop the likes of Messi and Neymar. On paper, it is one of the biggest mismatches you will find in any of Europe's top leagues.
But one thing Eibar has in abundance is heart. They have shown they will not easily be beaten in the Spanish league this year and they will enjoy their status as underdogs on Saturday.
The Segunda Division champions are used to this status, stopping Deportivo La Coruna winning the Spanish second tier title last year.
They will be hoping to show their resilience once again and show the world that money does not always count as everything in football. Eibar are a local team who are debt free and untouched by the commercial arm of the game.
Their romantic story is set to continue when they travel to play in one of the sport's great temples.
