Barcelona rushed to the last minute to announce the squad list for the Spanish football Classic. The plague of injuries in recent months has affected some of the most important players in the squad (Lewandowski, De Jong, Pedri, Raphinha and Koundé), who were initially excluded from facing Real Madrid, but in the last training session Everyone joined the group except Sergi Roberto. “I was surprised too,” Xavi answered about the presence of the players in the pre-match session, a day before the big match, but he still waited 24 hours to confirm the available players. “The idea is not to force. If they are not one hundred percent they will not play,” said the coach.
Finally, the chosen ones are announced to the public more than four hours before the start. Among those called up are Raphinha, Lewandowski and Koundé. The rest of the injured must speed up their recovery, and now they have days because next week there is no Champions League, there is the Copa del Rey in a round in which Barcelona will not participate because it is one of the teams that playing on. the Super Cup in January. The list is completed by Ter Stegen, Cancelo, Balde, Araujo, Iñigo MartÃnez, Gavi, Ferran Torres, Iñaki Peña, Joao Félix, Christensen, Marcos Alonso, Oriol Romeu, Gündogan, Lamine Yamal, FermÃn, and the young players Astralaga , Casadó, CubarsÃ, Guiu and Fort.
This is all it calls for:
The question is whether, other than being on the list, anyone can be a starter and the answer is no. The eleven that Xavi bet on are: Ter Stegen, Araujo, Christensen, Iñigo MartÃnez, Balde, Gündogan, FermÃn, Gavi, Cancelo, Ferran and Joao Félix. There are some unknowns about the drawing: if he will play with three center backs and two wings (Balde and Cancelo) or if Araujo is a right back to keep a close watch on Vinicius and Cancelo can be a fourth midfielder or even a winger on the right. . The one sacrificed is Oriol Romeu, who is expected to start because he is the only true defensive midfielder in the team, although his start of the season was not very good, and Ancelotti’s midfield is very good and very physical.
In recent days, the boys from La Masia have been able to take the wins. Against Athletic Club it was a goal from Guiu, who 33 seconds after taking the field in his first team debut, scored the last 10. In the Champions League against Shakhthar, FermÃn was the most important player, also the scorer of the second goal in the game that ended 2-1. Xavi gave continuity to FermÃn, while Lamine Yamal waited on the bench to try to change the second half if necessary. Barcelona, ​​​​​​​​​yes, got these results without the best version of the game. In that sense he missed De Jong, who was in his best moment since he arrived at Camp Nou, and Pedri. He would go on to miss it in the Classic.
“It’s not a decisive game,” Xavi said, and so did Ancelotti. Winning or losing these matches always gives morale, the two coaches also agreed, but there is still a lot of League ahead (only matchday 11) and the distance between the two teams is a point in favor of Madrid team.
