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Thanks to its victory over Porto a fortnight ago, FC Barcelona is already confident of a place in the round of 16 of the Champions League after missing the last two seasons with one game less.
This takes a lot of the flavour out of the last game, away from Royal Antwerp, this Tuesday at 21:00, because the Belgians have nothing at stake either. Having not won any of their last five games, they can no longer even aspire to a comfortable position in the Europa League, but they would like to be the only team to come out of the festival without picking up a single point.
Managed by former Barça man Mark van Bommel and champions of Belgium for the first time since the 1950s, there was considerable expectation surrounding Antwerp before this season’s Champions League started, but things haven’t worked out the way the Reds might have hoped. So far, they have conceded 15 goals and scored just three of their own, two of those when they took a 2-0 lead against Shakhtar Donetsk but ended up losing 3-2.
They are also not doing very well in their domestic league, where they are fourth and leaders 11 points behind Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, another historic club in the midst of a renaissance in search of its first league name since 1935.
Barça are also fourth in their league after the sadness of their 4-2 home defeat to Girona on Sunday, and as there is nothing special at stake in this match, coach Xavi can be forgiven for resting his players and experiment, for now. The biggest fear is the stopover in Valencia this weekend.
But first of all he chose to leave Ronald Araujo, Robert Lewandowski and Ilkay Gündogan at home, even so he made the decision to take them after the resolution to extend his stay in Belgium until another day. Frenkie de Jong has a fever and is staying at home with the injured Gavi, Ter Stegen, Inigo Martinez and Marcos Alonso.
Despite having such a giant squad, Xavi will most likely give some of the younger players a chance, with Angel Alarcon, Marc Casado, Diego Kochen, Pau Cubarsi, Aleix Garrido, Marc Guiu and Hector Fort all getting in the way. Paint the town.
Antwerp have their own problems: Ondrejka, Anthony Valencia, Engels and Bataille are injured, while Vines and Muja are serving suspensions.
Barca have visited Belgium since 2002, when they shared the Champions League with Club Brugge, and have lost to Belgian opponents since 1989, when Anderlecht knocked them out of the Cup Winners’ Cup.
The other match at the Estadi Olimpic was a comfortable 5-0 win for the Catalans, with goals from João Félix (2), Lewandowski and Gavi, while the other goal was an own goal by Jelle Bataille.
Barça go into this game with 12 points, three more than both Porto and Shakhtar Donetsk, who have nine each. Those two are playing each other at the same time at the Estádio do Dragão, with the Ukrainians needing to win by two goals in order to pip the Portuguese side to second place.
If Shakhtar win and Barca lose, they would be tied for the maximum with 12 points each. As they met in head-to-head matches (two goals each), they deserve to be split by overall goal difference, and Barca are seven goals ahead in that department lately. So, unless something admittedly normal happens, Barca’s position in the most sensible position in the table is unlikely to be threatened.
On the other hand, if Porto were to beat the Ukrainians and Barca were to lose in Antwerp, Barca would finish on top due to their impressive head-to-head record.