Barca vs. BATE
Venue: Camp Nou
Kick off: 8:45pm
European champions, Barcelona, welcome BATE Borisov in Group E of the Champions League on Wednesday night (today), as they look to move onto 10 points from four fixtures.
As for travelling BATE, the Belarusian club still hold strong hopes of qualification and sit just one point behind second-placed Bayer Leverkusen in the group.
Barcelona Luis Enrique’s men go into Wednesday’s clash aiming to complete the double over BATE, having already beaten the Belarusian side in the group last month.
That victory moved the Catalan club onto seven points at the top of the qualifying standings, as Barca built on a victory over Bayer Leverkusen and an opening draw away against Roma.
A win midweek would move Enrique and his charges onto 10 points, which should stand them in good stead to seal early qualification in the coming weeks.
Since losing to Sevilla at the start of the month, Barcelona have now gone on a three-game winning streak in La Liga that now sees them occupying second spot in the league table just behind leaders Real Madrid on goal difference.
Enrique will be hopeful of carrying the club’s favourable history in the competition into the fixture against Borisov, with Barca on a run of seven straight home wins in the Champions League.
The injury to Lionel Messi does not seem to have impacted the club’s fortunes too much, as both Luis Suarez and Neymar have been contributing a standout amount of goals in recent weeks.
A victory at the Camp Nou should put Barcelona on the brink of progression into the last-16 stages for the 12th season running, and the club’s fans will be confident of setting out another European marker with a commanding home win come the end of matchday four.
In light of the quality around BATE in the group, one might have forgiven some onlookers for writing the team off without a game being played, but after three fixtures the Belarusians are still well within a shout of making it into the knockout stages.
In between defeats to Bayer Leverkusen and Barca, Borisov were able to pull off a memorable victory over Roma to earn three points that have them sitting in third spot and one point off second-placed Bayer. Aleksandr Yermakovich will be aware that qualification is still a long way off, but he might be looking at the abilities of the teams around him knowing that all the sides are capable of taking points off of each other.
Gaining a point in Catalonia could make things extremely interesting for the underdogs going into the final two games of the group. What will really excite some fans is that the club are still to welcome Leverkusen to Belarus and they might see that game as the most likely route to another three points. Wednesday’s task remains a huge one for BATE to overcome, especially given their poor away record in the tournament.
As things stand, Borisov have only won one of 13 previous away fixtures in the Champions League group stages. Added to that is the fact that BATE have also lost on all five of their previous visits to Spain. In order to take something away from this fixture, BATE will need to carry over their away form from their domestic league exploits, which have seen them go unbeaten in 28 away matches.
Barcelona possible starting lineup: Stegen, Alba, Mascherano, Pique, Alves, Roberto, Busquets, Iniesta, Neymar, Suarez, Haddadi.
BATE Borisov possible starting lineup: Chernik, Mladenovic, Milunovic, Dubra, Polyakov, Yablonski, Nikolic; Volodko, Gordeychuk, Stasevich, Signevich.