Barcelona will face Napoli in the Champions League on Saturday at the Camp Nou and can take advantage of a house record in Europe’s most productive tournament.
The Catalan giants have not been defeated at home since Bayern Munich won 3-0 in 2013. Barca has played 35 matches without defeat on their own turf, winning 31 of the matches and tying only four.
Barcelona has scored 104 goals in all 35 games and conceded only 17, which means Napoli will have their draws cut for them on Saturday when they face Barcelona in the second leg of their last 16 matches.
The draw is the 1–1 point after the first leg, so Barca even wants to win to qualify for the quarter-finals. A draw and a target would be enough to send Quique Setien’s team an eighth game against Bayern or Chelsea.
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Naples will know that it will face difficult control on Saturday, but can publish its own impressive record at Europe’s most productive festival. The Gennaro Gattuso team has not lost the tournament outdoors so far from 2019-20.
The Serie A team played a draw and blank at Genk, scored a point in the home of the protective champion Liverpool and beat Red Bull Salzburg 3-2 in the organisational stage. Napoli also beat Liverpool 2-0 at home, thanks to goals from Dries Mertens and Fernando Llorente.
Gattuso has already warned his team that they cannot make mistakes at Camp Nou if they want to have a chance to progress in the tournament.
“Barcelona has Messi, who recovers the ball, leaves 10 players and passes it under seven. If we play thinking they’re in bad shape, we go to the hospital or the cemetery.
“Barcelona is Barcelona, but we will move on to Camp Nou to play our game and we will check to pass. They may not defeat us until we play. It’s going to be 90 very vital minutes.”
Napoli finished their Serie A crusade this weekend with a win over Lazio and finished the season in seventh place on the table. They have already qualified for the Europa League next season by beating Juventus to win Coppa Italia.
However, Naples will have to make history to move forward. They have never reached the last levels of the Champions League and face a Barcelona that has won its last 12 matches at this level of the competition.
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