After 2 long weeks, Hansi Flick’s side are finally back in action. This time, in the early afternoon kick off on Sunday. Live from 4:15pm local time, Barça travel away to Montilivi to face our Catalan rivals, Girona. It’s going to be a tough return back to domestic football, a big test. So let’s jump straight into it!
A Quick Look at our opponents:
It’s a Catalan derby already early on in the season on match day 5. Although it’s still early days, it’s been clear that Girona haven’t yet been able to reach the heights and momentum from last season. Frankly last year was a phenomenal campaign for Michel’s side. No one in world football saw it coming. And as a result of their season they managed to qualify for the champions league this season.
Unfortunately for them, during the summer they have lost a number of key players. Top goalscorer of last season, Dobvyk, winger Savio were among the main departures. And of course, Eric Garcia and Pablo Torre both returned back to Barca following their loans to Girona last year. So yes, they’re heavily weakened, but have still got key and talented players in and around the team. Although they haven’t yet reached the heights of last season, it’s still going to be a big test for us today.
Predicted lineup:
One incredible piece of news coming from the last week is the return of Gavi to group training, as well as Ansu Fati. Ronald Araujo also returned back to the field to continue his recovery and Frenkie De Jong is reportedly aiming to be back to training in the next few weeks too.
Slowly but surely, we’re getting our stars players back. But for now, it’s seemingly still too early to rely on any of them. Ansu is expected to be back for our game against Monaco. And I think we’re all very excited to see what Ansu can do in this Flick team. Youngster Guille Fernandez has also received a call up to the first team for todays game, so it’ll be interesting to see if he gets to feature at all.
When it comes to the lineup however, I don’t think we’ll see many changes from the side that beat Real Valladolid 7-0 in our last league game. I think the more consistency we can build, the better. Possibly Olmo may be the only change if he’s still feeling discomfort from a knock he got in midweek. But if he’s feeling good, I really can’t imagine a different lineup. Yamal from the right, player of the month Raphinha on the left. Balde and Kounde as the full backs. Pedri, olmo and Casado in midfield. That’s what I can see for tonight’s game.
My starting 11:
Ter Stegen
Kounde- Iñigo- Cubarsi- Balde
Pedri- Casado
Yamal- Olmo- Raphinha
Lewandowski
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