Barcelona participant their first sport of the 2023-24 UEFA Champions League tomorrow evening at Estadi Olimpic de Lluis Companys. They’ll tackle Royal Antwerp of their first UCL sport of the season.
Latest years haven’t been form to the Catalans in Europe. A mixture of accidents, poor preparation and inadequate psychological resilience noticed them knocked out within the group phases for 2 consecutive seasons. The target this season is to show their fortune round.
Voices within the dressing room
In response to experiences from Alex Pintanel, gamers within the Barcelona dressing room insist that they’re prepared for the UCL this 12 months.
There’s renewed religion within the squad’s means to progress deep into the competitors and maybe even go all the best way.
Step one, nevertheless, is to get out of the group phases and e book a spot within the knockout stage. With Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk and Royal Antwerp of their group, the percentages are the Barcelona’s favour. But, there aren’t any minnows within the UCL and each sport can be an ordeal.
A renewed squad
Purely from a perspective of the standard of the squad, not many golf equipment the world over can boast of being higher than Barcelona.
Xavi has all {that a} supervisor can dream of at his disposal. Pedri, Gavi, Ronald Araujo, Alejandro Balde, Jules Kounde, and Lamine Yamal are simply among the quite a few younger stars who’re nonetheless uncooked, however already look settled and firing.
On the identical time, the supervisor has seasoned execs in Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Robert Lewandowski, and Andreas Christensen to steer the ship.
Barcelona solely improved their squad within the latest summer season switch window by signing the treble-winning captain Ilkay Gundigan. With the German including his Champions League expertise to the roster, Barcelona haven’t any excuses this time round.
