Upsets can occur in the Copa del Rey, but we are finding it very difficult to predict one in this match; Barcelona will again be missing a number of key players, but the Catalan giants should have more than enough quality to comfortably progress to the last-16 stage of the competition once again.
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Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Barcelona win with a probability of 61.76%. A draw had a probability of 22.2% and a win for Linares Deportivo had a probability of 16.01%.
The most likely scoreline for a Barcelona win was 0-1 with a probability of 12.97%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-2 (11.94%) and 1-2 (9.69%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (10.52%), while for a Linares Deportivo win it was 1-0 (5.72%). The actual scoreline of 1-2 was predicted with a 9.7% likelihood. Our team at Sports Mole and our data analysis both correctly predicted that Barcelona would win this match.
