Girona vs. Real Madrid: Odds, Preview, Live Stream, TV Info

European champions Real Madrid will play their second match of the 2018-19 La Liga season on Sunday, when they visit Girona.

Per OddsShark, Los Blancos will start the match as clear favourites and can be backed at 3-10. Girona are 13-2, and a draw carries odds of 7-2 (odds accurate as of Friday night).

Kick-off is scheduled for 9:15 p.m. BST (4:15 p.m. ET), with broadcasts available through Eleven Sports (for UK viewers) and BeIN Sports (for U.S. viewers).

Early-Season Test for Blancos

On paper, this may look like an easy win for Real, but don't be fooled by Girona's disappointing opener against Real Valladolid, a scoreless draw. The Gironistes have a solid squad to go with a solid home reputation that Los Blancos know about all too well.

Last year, Real were also the clear favourites when they traveled to the modest Estadi Montilivi, and that didn't turn out as planned:

The club's close ties with Manchester City mean the squad has some talented youngsters on loan, with Patrick Roberts and Aleix Garcia spending this season in Catalonia. The attack is led by the prolific Cristhian Stuani, who scored 21 goals in La Liga last season.

Real have a more talented team, but they have shown plenty of signs of weakness early in the season. The UEFA Super Cup loss against Atletico Madrid was a bad start, and while they did beat Getafe in their league opener, Los Blancos were hardly convincing.

After a summer filled with turnover―most notably the departures of manager Zinedine Zidane and star forward Cristiano Ronaldo―some early struggles were always expected. It would appear the club's transfer business is done, however, leaving manager Julen Lopetegui to work with the squad he has, as AS English shared:

He has limited time to get the squad into peak form, however. Real's early-season schedule is tricky, and the fixture list coming out of the first international break looks daunting.

A difficult trip to the San Mames to face Athletic Bilbao will be followed by a home match against Espanyol, but it's what comes next that will test the side. On September 26, Los Blancos travel to Andalusia to face in-form Sevilla, who did some magnificent work in the transfer market and started the season with a convincing 4-1 win at Rayo Vallecano.

Just three days later, rivals Atletico visit the Bernabeu for a Super Cup rematch. Like Sevilla, Atletico had a great summer, although they dropped points in their league opener, a 1-1 draw at Valencia.

Real can't afford to go into the international break with anything but a win over Girona or it could prove difficult to regain momentum during that tough stretch of matches.

Prediction: Girona 1-2 Real