Weekend Football Betting Tips: Best Bets from MD32 in La Liga

It was one 6/4 winner from three for our Spanish Football expert Mark Sochon in his Best Bets for Matchday 31 in La Liga a week ago. He'll be looking to go even better this week as he looks for betting value away from El Clásico.

As always, he's scoured the betting markets from La Liga to pick out his three Best Bets to form his Weekend Football Betting Tips from La Liga for Matchday 32...

On a weekend when El Clásico will dominate the football conversation in Spain, there’s plenty going on elsewhere, although matchday 32 is not one that promises to deliver a lot of goals with some tight games expected across La Liga.

Athletic Club vs Granada (Friday 20:00)

We should get some goalmouth action at least at San Mamés where Athletic Club are huge favourites to defeat a Granada team that is heading firmly in the direction of the Segunda División.

It is hard to see anything other than a home win here. Athletic should be a bit fresher on Friday than they were last weekend after a week of celebrations following their Copa del Rey triumph in Seville. To their credit, they brushed off their hangovers to still perform reasonably well against Villarreal and would have won the game were it not for a controversial late penalty.

They remain unbeaten in Bilbao in all competitions since the opening day of the season, winning 11 and drawing four at home in La Liga since then. Up against the second-worst team in the division, they really should be chalking up a 12th home win and they need it having lost ground to Atlético Madrid in the race for Champions League qualification in recent weeks.

Granada have shown enough in their three matches under new boss José Ramón Sandoval to suggest this won’t necessarily be a cricket score though. Defensively they’ve been more convincing with only two goals conceded so far under the guidance of the colourful 55-year-old who was the catalyst for a dramatic Granada late escape act a decade ago.

With 11 points separating them from safety and only six to play after this one, there’ll be no repeat this year, but after just a third victory of the season last time out, they’ll head north with a bit more confidence and they look capable of at least keeping the score down so I’m going with Athletic Club and Under 3.5 Goals at 9/10.

Rayo Vallecano vs Osasuna (Saturday 15:15)

Rayo Vallecano’s home game against Getafe last week somewhat predictably turned into a 0-0 snooze fest. The most exciting moment was when a wayward clearance flew down the street to hit a police horse that was stationed outside the Estadio de Vallecas. With Osasuna visiting this weekend, there’s not much prospect of this being any better.

Last season, Rayo were one of the most entertaining sides in La Liga under Andoni Iraola and the appointment of his former assistant Iñigo Pérez as their new coach in February raised hopes that the fun factor might return to the Madrid club.

However, Pérez has encountered many of the same problems as his immediate predecessor Franciso. A badly misfiring forward line has left the Rayo boss with little choice but to prioritise defensive stability as they seek to edge towards safety.

Three straight clean sheets suggest that plan is working and they hold a six point advantage on the bottom three heading into this weekend following back-to-back goalless draws.

They are favourites on Saturday but a draw wouldn’t be a disastrous result against mid-table Osasuna who are perhaps too far back now to challenge for European football after an undeserved 1-0 defeat at home to Valencia on Monday.

The Pamplona side were the better team in the game and spurned a late opportunity to salvage a point, with Ante Budimir taking one of the worst penalties of all time in what was almost the final act of the game.

Cruelly for Budimir, who would have moved level with Artem Dovbyk on 17 goals as La Liga’s joint top goalscorer had he converted, that miss may prove his final act of the season with three broken ribs set to rule him out until the end of May.

The Croatian has scored a huge 44% of his team’s goals in La Liga this term and it’s difficult to know how Osasuna go about filling that void. His absence only adds to the sense that this will be a low scoring game and I’m backing Under 1.5 Goals at 6/4.

Getafe vs Real Sociedad (Sunday 13:00)

Getafe are in a similar boat to Osasuna with 15-goal striker Borja Mayoral set to miss the remainder of the campaign and their boss Pepe Bordalás has responded to that injury by reverting to a very cautious style that his critics view as anti-football.

Bordalás is far from the most popular man in Spain, but he’s adored in these parts and his style of play has largely delivered results with just two visiting teams winning in the league at the Coliseum since he returned to the club last April.

Excluding one fixture they were forced to play on neutral territory, they average exactly two points per home game this term which is the best record outside of the top five. While the absence of Mayoral is of course a huge blow, they’re still a really tough side to play against with only two goals conceded in their last four matches, one of which saw them edge out high-flying Girona 1-0 in front of their own fans.

Real Sociedad head south as the favourites, but come into the game on the back of a disappointing home draw against rock bottom Almeria.

They are also hampered by the suspensions of two regular starters in the shape of central defender Igor Zubeldia and holding midfielder Martín Zubimendi which is not ideal against a Getafe side that will put lots of bodies in the centre of the pitch and look to turn this into a physical kind of game.

La Real have been in better form since exiting the Champions League at the end of a pretty bleak winter, but they’ve had a really favourable set of fixtures, with their last four games against the current bottom three and 14th placed Alavés.

They have their own issues when it comes to putting the ball in the net, with no Real Sociedad player yet in double figures for league goals this term. Against a solid home defence, they may struggle to get more than a point here and I’m backing Double Chance - Getafe or Draw and Under 2.5 Goals at 13/10.

You can check out Mark's La Liga Betting Tips along with those from the rest of the Betfred Insights Spanish Football writers on our La Liga home page...