The lowdown on Cádiz CF
Following elimination from the Europa League at the hands of Eintracht Frankfurt, Barça return to their Liga schedule on Easter Monday with a 9.00pm CEST kick-off at home to Cádiz. Let’s take a closer look at the Andalusian side.
Where are they from?
Cádiz is a city in the southwest corner of Spain, in Andalusia, and is one of the oldest continually inhabited places in the whole of Europe. Steeped with history, its location means it has always had a close connection with naval history and particularly the first explorations of Africa and the Americas.
Its Carnival celebrations are among the best known in the world. The people of Cádiz are famed throughout Spain for their friendliness and open sense of humour, and for having one of the hardest accents for outsiders to understand!
History
Formed in 1910, the club didn’t play any first division football until 1977 but went on to spend the best part of a decade and a half at the elite level, albeit never finishing any higher than twelfth. That golden era ended in 1993 and since then they have only spent one season, 2005/06 in LaLiga and went straight back down afterwards. They finally returned in 2020, and this time did manage to hold onto their place.
Form guide
After finishing a more than respectable 12th last season, Cadiz only won three of their first 26 games in 2021/22, curiously all away from home, at Celta, Athletic Club and Levante.
Their recent run of just two defeats in eight games is their best patch of the season so far, and although it hasn’t been enough to pull them out of the relegation zone, they are just one point adrift of Granada and Mallorca, with a game in hand on the latter.
Head-to-head
This will be the 28th time that these sides have ever met in LaLiga. And Barça have only ever suffered three defeats. The first was a 1-0 win for Cadiz back in 1982, and the second was a 4-0 win in 1991, but Barça were taking things easy for that one having already won the title.
But after a run of ten straights wins dating back to 1989, and scoring 33 goals and conceding just four in the process, the Catalans suffered a shock 2-1 defeat in Cadiz in December of last year, and were also held to a 1-1 draw at Camp Nou and then a 0-0 draw in Cadiz earlier this season.
It’s the first time Barça have ever gone for three games without a win against Cadiz, and hopefully the negative run is not going to last any longer.
The players
International caps
Varazdat Haroyan (Armenia, 62), Anthony Lozano (Honduras, 39); Carlos Akapo (Equatorial Guinea, 27); Florin Andone (Romania, 25); Álvaro Negredo (Spain, 21); Santiago Arzamendia (Paraguay, 20); Tomás Alarcón (Chile, 9); Oussama Idrissi (Morocco, 7); Jens Jønsson (Denmark, 5)
Barça connections
Central defender Fali spent a period on loan to Barça B while on the books at Gimnastic Tarragona.
Winger Alberto Perea was at Barça B in the 2016/17 season, joining Cadiz at the end of the campaign.
Honduran striker Anthony ‘Choco’ Lozano was at Barça B in the 2017/18 season, playing 20 games and scoring 4 goals before leaving for Girona.
Top scorers 2021/22
Álvaro Negredo (6), Anthony Lozano (5), Alez Fernandez (3)
The boss
Sergio González replaced Alvaro Cervera as manager in January of this year. The Catalan was a hard-working midfielder at Espanyol and Deportivo in the noughties, also winning 11 caps for Spain.
He then went into management at Espanyol, eventually being put in charge of the first team, and after that spent three seasons at the helm of Real Valladolid.