Barcelona: Barcelona is set to appear for their first Champions League game under new head coach Xavi as they host Benfica at Camp Nou while interim manager, for club legend Michael Carrick, is set to guide Manchester United against Villarreal.
Sitting in a very dire position, with doubts of next round qualification, Barcelona will host Benfica at home, who has already routed them 3-0 previously. Seemingly finding a new flair and enhancement of confidence with club legend Xavi coming in Barcelona will look to overturn all the woes of Ronal Koeman’s era. However, with a lot of key players like Pedri, who had recently won the Golden Boy 2021 award, along with Martin Braithwaite, Ousmane Dembelé all sidelined due to injury taming Benfica at home will be quite a tough job. However, the positives of having players like Gavi, Nico, and Memphis Depay might work in favor of the Bluagranes. Although Barcelona’s encounter with Espanyol seem to be a pretty ordinary encounter, with a spot-kick goal separating the two sides, the striking feature was the presence of eight La Masia players in the line-up. It is hoped that coming from La Masia himself, Xavi would uphold the academy which has always been the answer to a lot of the club’s problems mostly financially.
Manchester United is set to face Villarreal in an away encounter and former player Michael Carrick is to be guiding them as an interim manager after head coach Ole Gunner Solskjaer was sacked following a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Watford. But woes don’t end there, they will be without the services of Raphael Varane, Edinson Cavani, and Paul Pogba for the clash as they anticipate to turn around from the defeat.
In the final top encounter of the night, Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea will host Juventus at Stamford Bridge. Riding through an array of big performances, the Blues will be eager to take the revenge of the 1-0 Turin loss while Juventus are still coping up with the loss of Cristiano Ronaldo.
In other clashes of the night, Dynamo Kyiv will be hosting Bayern Munich while Ajax visits Besiktas and keep making some Sebastien Haller magic awaiting.
