Luis Garcia: Barcelona to win La Liga after having more time with Quique Setien

Former Liverpool, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid player Luis Garcia was speaking as an ambassador for LaLiga at a LaLiga event prior to Spanish football's return...

I am looking forward to seeing all of the stars of La Liga playing again. For me the most important thing is that all the safety protocols continue to be followed and players don’t suffer too badly from injuries.

It’s going to be about adaptation. The players will have to learn to play without the crowd and without the push of the fans. It doesn’t matter whether you’re home or away, you’re used to the sound of the crowd.

Clubs are working with sports psychologists to give tools to the players to focus on what is really important on the field.

Going out into the stadium and not hearing anything apart from team-mates is going to be really tough for players, at least for the first few games. It’s important that the players adapt as soon as possible.

Both Barcelona and Real Madrid have almost the same chance to win La Liga with key players for both returning from injuries. Madrid will have Eden Hazard back and Marco Asensio as well, while Barcelona have Luis Suarez returning.

But in my opinion Barcelona will win La Liga because of their squad - we know about Ansu Fati coming through and Riqui Puig should hopefully get more chances in the first-team in the coming weeks - but also because they now have had the chance to work properly with their new coach Quique Setien. That is something that they needed when he arrived in January.

I was surprised when Real Madrid decided to move from the Santiago Bernabeu stadium to the Di Stefano stadium. Even though there is not going to be a crowd, it’s always challenging for visiting teams to play at the Bernabeu because of what it is and what it means.

I’m not saying it will affect them much because no stadiums will have crowds and their players will be used to playing at their training ground but I think they could have gone about it a different way.

It’s more difficult every single year in La Liga and that means the clubs are getting stronger. We have six of seven clubs with the chance of playing Champions League football next year and there’s also a great battle at the bottom of the table where almost 11 teams are fighting for survival.

We’ve got teams who play with fast transitions and counter-attacking football, teams who like to keep possession and you have some of the best players in the world.

It is going to be a fantastic battle until the end of the season.

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