Xavi’s Barça, especially his defense, will have to be careful in Frankfurt. Eric Garcia, Piqué and Jordi Alba will miss next Thursday’s second leg at the Camp Nou if they see a yellow card. All three aim for headlines, so they will be at risk from the start. Not only they are warned of sanction. Busquets and Gavi are the other two Barça players who are one card away from missing the next game.
Barça’s defence, therefore, will have to pay attention to details and, above all, see how the match evolves. As long as the result is balanced, seeing a card will be bad news for the return. If the azulgrana are capable of getting the tie back on track, it cannot be ruled out that one of the threatened forces the warning. Piqué had it planned in the first leg of the round of 16 against Galatasaray but the game got complicated…
The center of defense has a few more replacements (Mingueza, Lenglet). At left back, Balde has returned to a roster after his injury. Gavi and Busquets have more possible substitutes in midfield. This Thursday’s Eintracht-Barça is refereed by the Serbian Srdjan Jovanovic. Eintracht has no warnings.