Barcelona will kick off their Champions League knockout run in two weeks’ time when they travel to Napoli for the first leg of their last-16 tie. The festival may well be their only realistic chance of winning the title this season, given that they are absent from the Copa del Rey and Real Madrid’s 8 numbers in the La Liga title race.
Under UEFA rules, clubs can make three adjustments to their squads from the organisational stage onwards, and since they only added Vitor Roque in the winter transfer window, Barcelona struggled to make all those adjustments.
Gavi and Alejandro Balde have likely been excluded from the squad as they are both out for the rest of the season. Roque has been added, while Sport say that head coach Xavi Hernandez has opted to include Pau Cubarsi and Unai Hernandez in the A list section of Barcelona’s squad for the knockout stages.
Cubarsi was on the B list for the organizational stages and was on the bench in the matches against Shakhtar Donetsk. Since then, he has had a fundamental member in Barcelona’s first team, so the decision was made to promote him.
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