[steamroller]

hmmmm... imho, barca is still a class better than espanyol irrespective that they are city rivals. espanyol struggled to stay in laliga last season and they were leaking goals at the back. nothing much about their preseaon except for the games against villarreal & palermo, ther rest were holiday trips.
barca although agreed that they could be tired, has a good oppurtunity to be level with their biggest rival real madrid in term of no. of super cups win should barca win this time around.. would be 7 a piece. their preseason has been against good teams in mexico & america which produced plenty of goals.
barca's line-up itself especially with the likes of messi, eto, deco, ronaldinho, xavi, zambrotta, gudjohnson have a formidable attacking force which is worth at least 1 goal. defensively with thuram, it can only get better.
the fact that rikjaard was prepared to seek for a new date if their players were not allowed off from their national duties yesterday shows that he is serious about winning this cup. game is in montjuic - akin to stone's throw from nou camp so its an away game to barca. as the reigning laliga & euro champions, doubtful that barca would want to start their campaign with a loss. definately worth a risk on barca tonite.