Date: Wednesday, 09/19/2012 20:45

Competition: Champions League- Group G: Round 1

Stadium: Camp Nou

Player Information

Carles Puyol picked an injury during Barca's win over Getafe leaving him sidelined up to 4-6 weeks. Therefore, he will not participate against Moscow.

Andres Iniesta, Isaac Cuenca and Eric Abidal have also been ruled out due to injury

Alba should be back for the game after recovering from the flu whilst Sanchez is still yet given the clear after medical services declared him unavaiable for the Getafe game because of problems in his left thigh muscles.

My Expectations and Predicting Lineups

Im hoping after resting a few stars, we will be fresh for this game. We know that Puyol is gone so Mascherano will definately partner up with Pique in the centre of defense. Mascherano really did look uncertain when he came on. He needs to be on his game for some time with Puyol out and on Wednesday night, it won't be any different...
Im expecting Alves to start and also Adriano. Montoya had a good game though he clearly doesn't have Alves legs coming back. Pique had to sometimes cover for him as Montoya didn't have the legs coming back... Adriano at this point of time is clearly better defensive wise and can equally be just as good as Alba going forward as well and Im sure Tito will try to place the best defensive line on Wednesday as he would want to get off to a good start in the Champions League as well as continue his winning form as new Barca coach...
Midfield is an interesting question. With Xavi playing the full 90 minutes as well as minutes on international duty will Tito have the guts to give him the rest and allow Fabregas or perhaps Song to play as the creative midfielder? Song was rested for the Getafe game and we all know how well he played against Valencia, maybe he may have a shot as the creative mid or maybe play as the pivote and allow Busquests to take the CM role. Thiago is also a great option as he had a very good game last night and his link up play with others as well as working inside tight spaces is a key reason why people are calling him the next Xavi. I wouldn't mind him playing at CM. Fabregas will probably complete the midfield after a good game where he provided two assists. He played at false nine on that occasion and has shown poor performances playing as a CAM. Hopefully Wednesday is different...
Up front Im expecting Villa, Pedro and Messi. MVP Villa will hopefully start... Prefer him than Alexis any day and is a safer option in terms of injuries... No Tello thanks. Wasn't impressed by his last two performances...

--------------Valdes--------------
Alves--Pique--Mascherano--Adriano
----Thiago--Song---Fabregas----
Villa-------Messi-------Pedrito----

I don't like that midfield though Im predicting as I think Tito has the balls to rest Xavi. Busquests is the ideal replacement though after two great performances by Thiago and Fabregas, I can't see him starting (unless he plays at pivote...)

I think Barca will win and comfortably. If the midfield tightens up (looking at you Cesc...) then we will dominate the match like any though with that lineup I predicted, I can see loose balls going around, desperate balls etc. Hopefully our defense and attack make up for such a mess... 4-0 is my scoreline with Messi to take two, Villa with one and Fabregas with the other...

I would change Adriano to Alba, but otherwise agree with that lineup. Also playing Xavi here could give him rest against Granada, which also would mean overall rest time of 11 days.

On the second thought Alba still has a flu, so maybe Adriano would be better fit.

Messi against Russian teams 0+0@4. Time to fix that.

Why would you want Alba to play over Adriano anyway. Ariano has been better so far.

Rotation.

Fair enough.

Dont agree with resting Xavi.Hes been amazing for the last two games.Let him keep it that way.

Lol Xavi has been our best and most consistent player thus far. Do you really think I want him to have a nice time on the bench? No. I feel that he may need the rest because of the constant time he has.

I agree. Rest those with heavy presense in the latest games.
Spartak is no giant and the game is in Camo Nou. Let Villa and Song start

-------------Valdes
-Alves-Masch-Pique-Adriano
-------------Song
------Xavi---------Thiago
-Perdro--------------Villa
------------Messi

^this. only fabregas for xavi. let's rest the maestro a bit

The Maestro can rest his ass against Granada... We need to win this game and he's the sort of player who needs to play in all big games.

As he gets older my idea is he becomes like Scholes and Giggs. Just wheel him out on his wheelchair and tell him to do his job in the big games He always delivers.

Thiago and Fab can boss in pretty much all the other games. Not saying that means they should play more than Xavi, but games like Granada are ones where we can rest Xavi. Not games like Getafe away or UCL openers.

I like windkick's team. I'd go with exactly that but Fabregas could play and Thiago on the weekend... we'll see.

Well we’re injury heavy this time and I wouldn’t like to risk our team’s brain.
Maybe I’m underestimating spartak but I think we can beat the game comfortably without xavi

The squad that was named to take on Spartak tonight:
Valdés, Pinto, Alves, Piqué, Fàbregas, Xavi, Villa, Messi, Thiago, Mascherano, Sergio, Pedro Montoya, Adriano, Song, Bartra, Alexis, Tello and Deulofeu.

Jordi Alba will miss tonights game even though he recovered from the flu. We can all guess that Adriano will take the left back position, if Alba even had a chance playing...

Alexis Sanchez has been named even though he hasn't been given the green light. Im sure Tito will not start him, instead Tello or Villa.

Here are some interesting facts leading up to tonights game...

• This will be third time that Barça and Spartak have met. The last time was in the group stages of the 1993/94 season, when Barça won 5-1 at the Camp Nou and drew 2-2 in the Russian capital

• Barça’s record against teams from Russia is five wins, five draws and two defeats. Their home record consists of four wins and two defeats

• FC Barcelona have not lost any of their last 16 home fixtures in Europe, but the last loss was also against a representative of the Russian Premier League, Rubin Kazan (1-2), on October 20, 2009

• Barça are just four goals short of reaching 800 in UEFA competitions

• Barça have won seven of their last eight opening Champions league fixtures when they have been played at home. The only time they didn’t start with all three points was last season in the 2-2 draw with AC Milan

• Spartak Moscow won two and lost one of their three away matches in the group stages last season. They won at Marseille (0-1) and Zilina (1-2) but lost to eventual champions Chelsea (4-1)

• Spartak are currently seventh in the Russian Premier League with 13 points from eight matches. They started well, with three wins out of three, but this was followed by a hefty 5-0 defeat at Zenit, and they have only won one of their four matches played since

• Unai Emery did not beat Barça in any of 12 previous attempts as manager of Almeria and Valencia (five draws and seven defeats)

• In tonight’s match, David Villa and Jordi Alba will both be meeting up once again with their former boss at Valencia

• Another reunion will be that of Valeri Karpin, the executive director of Spartak, and José Manuel Pinto, who played together at Celta from 1998 to 2002

• Leo Messi, the top scorer in the last four editions of the Champions League, has never scored against a Russian team

• Dutchman De Zeeuw, who normally plays in the Spartak midfield, was sent off in the last game of the qualifying stages and is therefore suspended for tonight’s game at the Camp Nou

• This will be a doubly special night for Spartak’s Brazilian star Rómulo, because September 19 is also his 22nd birthday

• Tonight’s match official will be Milorad Mazic of Serbia, who takes charge of a Champions League game for the first time, although he has plenty of experience, having previously refereed 35 different games in UEFA sanctioned competitions.

Tello starting again. I was really hopping for MVP

tito is really taking his time with villa...

Bad luck first half. I hope Pique is not injured seriously.

Strange 1st Half

- great goal from Tello, even if it was the exact same shot he does every time.
- not so great goal from Alves.
- Shaktar parking the airplane and didn't have one good chance, and they are still level.
- Pique injured. I hope it's not bad.
- also Messi seemed to be onside with 1on1 against Shakhtar goalie.

el puto crack song !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

good reaction from Tito with the changes. We were out of luck a bit. Even with the defensive mistakes we should have killed the match earlier and finished at least 4:2.

Not the greatest performance by our side, but I'm really glad we were able to turn it around. After seeing Song in defence, I'd really rather see Barta there. We really need Piqué back against Madrid though.

This is one of those games I'd like to forget as soon as possible and move on. 3 Points is what matters. Any definitive news on Piqué yet?

Pique won't make it to play Madrid. He has a twisted ankle and he will be 2-3 weeks out.

Song or Bartra + Machete to face them. I'm not scared though. Time to see how our replacement CB can do it, and I'm confident they won't be much worse than Hummels would be.

I'm happy with the game, we won, we made a comeback, and I always prefer winning 3-2 than 1-0. Our plan B of 4231 with Messi as AM and Alexis as striker seems to work.

Great game from Pedro although he didn't score, he was crucial to give rythm to both the 2-2 and the 3-2. Tello scored and assisted but he wasn't great. Song OK at CB but wasn't really tested and made a crazy tackle/block.

Collblanc wrote:el puto crack song !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only a cameroonian would make a comment like this when Song was OK but not much today.....