Elche vs. Levante / La Liga – This is going to be a derby of the rear and ending of this La Liga round, and also the end of the first half of the season, given that it is 19th round. Both teams are positioned in the relegation zone and the difference between them is that Levante has two points more than Elche, who won last week while Levante drew. Both teams were eliminated from the Cup last week, where Elche was outclassed twice by Barcelona and Levante was able to honourably say goodbye with a victory. Last season they played the only two H2H matches in La Liga and then at this stadium the result was 0-0, while Levente won in the front of their fans by 2-1. Begins: 12.01.2015 – 20:45 CET

Elche
Elche is the penultimate in the standings and therefore it is clearly in a difficult situation, but what encourages it what they showed in the previous two rounds against very unpleasant opponents. We will not count into that two Cup match against Barcelona because Elche didn’t shine there and was eliminated by 9-0 in total. Immediately after the lottery draw Elche had said goodbye to this competition, which was confirmed later with the defeat at the Nou Camp by 5-0. The championship is much more important and the second leg was duly played but nothing more. They didn’t manage to exploit completely changed team of the Catalans, because they were again defeated with a high goal difference.

However, in the championship they won away in Bilbao that after they drew with very unpleasant Villarreal, in a match in which had reached a backlog of two goals. That is a positive series of two matches that they certainly want to continue with and coach Escriba had rested most of the regulars against Barcelona, so now on the pitch goes almost the same team as in Bilbao, where the handicap is absence of stopper Lombana, who has five yellow cards and will be probably replaced by experienced Pelegrin.

Probable lineups Elche: Tyton – Suarez, Roco, Pelegrin, Cisma – Gonzalez, Pasalic – Rodriguez, Fajr, Niguez – Jonathas

Levante
Levante was too eliminated from the Cup so they can now focus at the championship and the battle for survival. They were eliminated in a slightly different way from the Cup but by a weaker opponent than it is Barcelona, so they managed to win Malaga in the second leg with insufficient 3-2. However, the victory could be significant because they had regained confidence and won after more than two months when they outplayed Almeria at the beginning of November. In the meantime, they played six league matches and three in the Cup.

It is good that they have scored three goals because the inefficiency was Levante’s big problem so this might change now. The bad is that Barral, who scored two goals in the turnaround against Malaga, cannot play now due to yellow cards as it seems that he is in a good goal-scoring form. Besides him there will be no Karampelas, which is not a big handicap, because experienced Juanfran can cover the left flank. The good news is that midfielder Diop suspension is over and he will play in this match.

Probable lineups Levante: Marino – I.Lopez, Vyntra, Navarro, Juanfran – Diop, Simao – Inavschitz, Ruben Garcia, Morales – Casadesus

Elche – Levante PICK
It seems that this might be a close affair and it is not excluded that it be so, but we will contrary to expectations predict that will be more goals than it is usual for these teams, because Elche play better and Levante indicated its form with victories in the Cup, so they could play openly in this match.

Pick: over 2 goals