He is just facing his second game as coach of Barcelona, but tonight (21 hours) at the Camp Nou Xavi Hernandez will live his first face or cross with the game that will face him at Benfica, in which everything that is not a triumph will complicate and how his team’s classification to play in the round of 16 of the Champions League.
The defeats against Bayern (0-3) and Benfica itself (3-0) in the first two days of the group stage are a slab that still drags Barça despite winning the next two games, against Dinamo Kiev ( 1-0 and 0-1). Anyway, a win today would qualify him mathematically for the next round. Instead, a draw would force him to beat on the last day at the impregnable Allianz Arena (or expect Benfica not to be able to defeat at home to the Ukrainian team). A direct defeat would no longer allow him to depend on himself. The hard-fought victory against Espanyol was an injection of joy for a Barça that wants to grow in a new project that will gradually return it to the level of play it showed in times gone by. In this sense, a European elimination would be a hard blow after a few weeks in which the enthusiasm has returned with the returns of Xavi and Alves.
Low and lower
The Egarenc coach will have difficulty making the front of the starting eleven, as he only has three natural strikers available: Memphis Depay, Luuk de Jong and Demir. Apart from the injuries of Dembélé, Agüero, Ansu Fati and Braithwaite, he will not be able to count on the ends of the subsidiary Ilias Akhomach and Ez Abde. Ilias carries a UEFA Youth League sanction that also has consequences for the Champions League, while Ez Abde is not entered in the competition because he has not been with the club for at least two years. One possible solution would be to place Dest dest, but the American is still dragging a low back pain and is ruled out. That way, Demir will have plenty of options to be a starter on the right. Gavi, for his part, would play on the left as he did against Espanyol.
For their part, Benfica are also facing the game as a matter of urgency and will do so without Brazilian defender Lucas Verissimo, who suffered a broken knee ligament on November 7 and will miss the rest of the season. Rodrigo Pinho is also ruled out. If on September 30 the Portuguese team easily beat Barça (3-0), those of Jorge Jesus have just lost the last two commitments in Europe (0-4 and 5-2 with Bayern) and in their championship, the Portuguese, has fallen to third place.
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