Barcelona return to Champions League action this midweek with their third game of the League Phase against Greek champions Olympiacos at the Montju\u00efc Olympic Stadium.<\/p>\n
The Blaugrana won a dramatic Catalan derby against Girona at the weekend and are looking to return to winning ways in Europe after losing to Paris Saint-Germain last month, and will be favorites against an Olympiacos side yet to win or score in the League Phase so far.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how we think Hansi Flick will line up his troops for Tuesday\u2019s battle:<\/p>\n
Flick must balance the need for a win in this one with the need to save a few bodies for El Cl\u00e1sico at the weekend, but we still expect a pretty strong team on Tuesday to make sure of the points.<\/p>\n
The coach has the luxury of making changes at the back since the injury plague somehow hasn\u2019t affected any of his defenders, so we expect the bulk of the alterations to come in the backline. Flick has rotated both of his center-backs pretty regularly this season, and we expect it to happen again with Andreas Christensen and Saturday\u2019s hero Ronald Araujo starting in the middle.<\/p>\n
Alejandro Balde might benefit from a rest in this one ahead of the Cl\u00e1sico given his injury history, so Gerard Mart\u00edn could start at left-back with Jules Kounde on the right despite his poor recent form.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s not much Flick can do in midfield with Gavi and Dani Olmo out with injury and Marc Bernal not ready to start yet, so we expect the same central trio that started against Girona with Marc Casad\u00f3 and Pedri in the double pivot and Frenkie de Jong in a more advanced role for this one.<\/p>\n
Ferm\u00edn L\u00f3pez was fantastic in his second half substitute cameo at the weekend and added much-needed energy and intensity to the side even in a less than ideal left-wing role, so we expect him to start this one in that position since Raphinha and Ferran Torres are not yet ready to return to the XI. Marcus Rashford will lead the line in the absence of Robert Lewandowski, and Lamine Yamal will start on the right wing after playing an hour at the weekend.<\/p>\n
Possible XI: Szczesny; Kounde, Araujo, Christensen, Mart\u00edn; Casad\u00f3, Pedri; Yamal, De Jong, Ferm\u00edn; Rashford (4-2-3-1)<\/p>\n
How do you think Barcelona should line up against Olympiacos? Let us know your thoughts, predictions and teams in the comments below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barcelona return to Champions League action this midweek with their third game of the League Phase against Greek…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[4218,403,99],"class_list":["post-238476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-barcelona-uefa-champions-league","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}