After officially opening the season with five wins, all by thrashing, which made them forget the opening draw against Rayo Vallecano, Xavi’s team comes particularly connected to the most complicated appointment so far this season ( 9 p.m., Movistar Champions League). “We are facing a very intense team, who arrive with many players in the area and who apply very high pressure. I imagine a very even match: we both want the ball and we both suffer when we don’t have it. There will be a fierce fight to have it. We will try to dominate the game and monopolize the position, despite the fact that we are facing Bayern”, analyzed the Barça coach. Barça will face a team that will want to attack them for most of the game. “The defense is one of the things we had to improve the most compared to last season. Now we have a lot of quality up front, and the defenders have the responsibility of trying to keep the goal to zero”, said Ronald Araujo.
Although Bayern Munich are not at their best in the match, the Bavarian team is a well-oiled machine and already started the group stage by beating Inter Milan at home (0-2). The last three consecutive draws in the Bundesliga – last season they only drew five games in the entire championship – however, have given rise to doubts which the German press have already put to rest. The newspaper Bild published this Monday certain discomfort of the Bayern players with their coach, Julian Nagelsmann. According to the German rotation, much of the dressing room disagrees with the young coach because they consider that he never admits his mistakes after a bad result. Bayern remain unbeaten in the Bundesliga, but are third, two points behind a surprising Union Berlin.
However, Nagelsmann has warned of the dangers of this new Barça and considers the recent precedents, clearly favorable to his team, to be wet paper. “We have to erase the impressions of the last games with Barça from the hard drive. It is a very different team. It is very aggressive and they put a lot of pressure up top, but at the same time they are also able to defend. They are very active in all the lines and, in terms of possession, it reminds me of when Xavi was still playing,” said the 35-year-old coach. The duel against the Bavarians is not a definitive test to evaluate a growing Barça, but it is a good thermometer to see where the team is in the first confrontation against a European giant after the revolution of template “We draw, win or lose, you can’t draw hasty conclusions. We’ve been at Barça for nine months, a lot has changed compared to last season. It’s a challenge and we think we can win, but it’s true that we’re facing one of the best teams in the world. We are in a great moment of form and we want to take advantage of it. However, whatever happens, I don’t want this match to be used to make any judgments,” explained Xavi, shaking off the pressure of about
Entrusted to Lewandowski
Xavi has the entire squad available for the game, while Nagelsmann is without one of his best players: French winger Kingsley Coman, absent with a muscle injury. The most certain thing is that the coach insists on the 4-2-2-2, with the young Jamal Musiala and Leroy Sané on the wings, while the point of attack will be for Sadio Mané and Thomas Müller, who always plays especially motivated against Barça. Serge Gnabry can be an alternative to attacking wings. Xavi, for his part, will bet on the gala eleven with the only doubts as to who will be the left back (Balde, Alba or Marcos Alonso) and who will accompany Busquets and Pedri in the middle of the field: the chosen one will be either Gavi or Frenkie De Jong.
The forward line seems clear: Raphinha, Lewandowski and Dembélé. The Pole will experience a special return, after debuting in the Champions League as a Blaugrana player with three goals against modest Viktoria Plzen. He is the only footballer who has signed one hat-trick in the competition with three different teams: Borussia Dortmund, Bayern and Barça.
