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Competition / Round: Champions League 2020-21, Group G, Round 2
Barcelona Departures and doubts: Marc-André ter Stegen, Philippe Coutinho, Samuel Umtiti, Matheus Fernandes (out)
Juventus Departures and doubts: Cristiano Ronaldo, Giorgio Chiellini, Alex Sandro, Matthijs De Ligt (out), Leonard Bonucci (doubtful)
Date and Time: Wednesday, October 28, 2020, 9 pm CET / WAT (Barcelona and Nigeria), 8 pm GMT (UK), 4 pm ET, 1 pm PT (US), 1.30 am IST (India, Thursday)
Venue of events: Allianz Stadium, Turin, Italy
Referee: Danny Makkelie (NED)
WHERE: Kevin Blom (NED)
How to watch on television: TUDN (US), BT Sport 3 (UK), Canal + Sport 3 (Nigeria), SONY TEN 2 (India), Movistar Champions League (Spain), others
How to broadcast: FuboTV (US), BT Sport Live (UK), Movistar + (Spain), DAZN (Canada), others
After a bad defeat against Real Madrid in the first The classic of the season, Barcelona are back in action for their second Champions League group stage game away against Juventus at the Allianz Stadium on Wednesday night.
But the game doesn’t seem like a big deal at the moment. The Barça news is dominated by the resignation of President Josep Maria Bartomeu, who has decided to resign together with his entire board of directors, a decision that the fans have always wanted. It’s finally done, and yet things couldn’t feel more desperate right now.
It’s impossible to expect the new board to turn things around for the better right away after all the damage done by the previous management, the team is still full of giant egos who can’t really contribute in the same way but demand the same treatment, and the financial situation is REALLY bad right now.
Barça’s future looks bleak unless something dramatic happens, and for now the only hope is that Ronald Koeman and his team find some consistency and start playing well and winning big games, which they haven’t done yet. Beating Juventus is a good start, and maybe they can get a good enough victory to bring some kind of positivity.
But it won’t be easy. Juventus are almost unbeatable at home and despite a host of injuries to their defense, the Bianconeri It will be very dangerous in attack despite not having Cristiano Ronaldo, who will be missing after not providing a negative COVID-19 test. Andrea Pirlo is off to a good start to his career as a coach, and Juve will play hard and try to take advantage of Barça’s inconsistency.
It appears that the future of the club is at stake on Wednesday night. Another bad defeat for a great team in Europe and pessimism will come in very quickly.
Let’s dance, I guess.
POSSIBLE ALIGNMENTS
Barcelona (4-2-3-1): Net; Roberto, Araujo, Lenglet, Alba; Pjanic, De Jong; Griezmann, Pedri, Fati; Messi
Juventus (4-4-2): Szczesny; Square, Demiral, Danilo, Frabotta; Kulusevski, Bentancur, Rabiot, Chiesa; Dybala, Morata
PREDICTION
I can’t trust this team at the moment, although I think they will be able to score goals against such a weakened Juventus defense – a 2-2 draw.
