Champions League Preview: Barcelona

by Ian Morrison | Posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2015

Luis Enrique’s treble winning side will fancy their chances in a group that has provided them with stern but winnable matches.

Barça will have their eyes on retaining the trophy they won so convincingly against Juventus in Berlin last May. They start their campaign against the team who finished second to the defeated finalists in their domestic league last season, Roma.

The giallorossi were having a great start to the season last year until they were torn apart 7-1 by Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich in the Olympic Stadium in Rome. They never really recovered after that. They will be determined not to let that happen again. They have one of Pep’s most trusted players from that great Barcelona team, Seydou Keita and after being rested for the first few games of the season, the mercurial Francesco Totti played at the weekend.

Roma will likely fight it out for second place with Bayer Leverkusen. Bayer have one of the most admired managers in Europe, Roger Schmidt. His side play with the focus on a quick recovery of the all and to take a shot as soon as possible. They create many chances and as soon as a ball is won back, players are making runs to give the main in possession options. This could cause Barça’s defence problems as players could be caught up field out of position. They will be the Catalans toughest opponent.

Finally, there is BATE Borisov. Which will see the return of Alexander Hleb to the Camp Nou. The Belarusian side are the weakest in the group. The two teams were in the same group in the 2011-2012 version of the competition with Barcelona winning 5-0 and 4-0. It is hard to see the results being nay different this time round.

However, it is difficult seeing any team stopping that amazing front three of Messi, Suarez and Neymar. Barça should qualify from this group with relative ease.