The biggest game of Barcelona’s season has arrived: the Catalans travel to France for the much-anticipated first leg of the Champions League quarter-final tie against Ligue 1 champions Paris Saint-Germain at the Parc des Princes, needing a positive result on the road ahead of next week’s return leg at the Montjuïc Olympic Stadium.
Barça had 10 days to prepare for this match and will be the fresher of the two teams, but that doesn’t make the Blaugrana task any easier: PSG are favorites in the tie and have a Barça legend as their manager in Luis Enrique and one of the best players in the world in Kylian Mbappe, and they are hungry to get a big result at home and take a big step towards the semi-finals.
Here’s how we think Xavi Hernández will line up his troops for Wednesday’s battle:
The rare but welcome 10-day window to prepare for this game gave Xavi a chance to fully focus on one opponent and come up with his best possible gameplan to take a positive result back to Catalonia, and the coach seemed to already know his starting XI before the training sessions even began.
According to all reports the boss will stick with pretty much the same team that won the second leg of the Round of 16 against Napoli, which would mean Marc-André ter Stegen in goal and a back four of Jules Kounde, Ronald Araujo, Pau Cubarsí and João Cancelo.
The only question about the back four is tactical and it depends on the position of Mbappe: if the French superstar plays on the left wing, Araujo will most likely start at right-back with Kounde in the middle; if Mbappe is the central striker, Kounde will retain his full-back spot and Araujo will be in the heart of the backline. We’ll only know the answer once the game starts.
The international break and the 10 days off after the win over Las Palmas allowed Xavi to recover two crucial pieces: Frenkie de Jong took part in all training sessions over the last week and is expected back in the squad as of this writing, though the same cannot be said of Pedri who will most likely be saved for the second leg.
The second key player back in the fold is Andreas Christensen, who is once again over his Achilles troubles and is ready to start in his now regular defensive midfield role. Ilkay Gündogan will start as usual, and De Jong will most likely be a substitute given his long absence recovering from an ankle injury.
That means there will be two players fighting for the remaining spot in midfield: captain Sergi Roberto and young Fermín López, who have both given plenty of reasons to deserve a start in the big game. Xavi has often opted for experience in big away games throughout his time as Barça coach, so Roberto will most likely get the nod in a more defensive role to allow Gündogan full license to attack in Paris.
