FC Barcelona vs Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid<\/p>\n
Competition\/Round: 2025-26 UEFA Champions League, Quarter-Finals, 1st Leg<\/p>\n
Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Raphinha, Andreas Christensen, Frenkie de Jong, Marc Bernal (out)<\/p>\n
Atl\u00e9tico Outs & Doubts: Jos\u00e9 Gim\u00e9nez, Johnny Cardoso, Pablo Barrios, Jan Oblak (out)<\/p>\n
Barcelona Form Guide: DWWWW<\/p>\n
Atl\u00e9tico Form Guide: WWLLL<\/p>\n
Misses next match if booked: Lamine Yamal, Ferm\u00edn L\u00f3pez, Marc Casad\u00f3, Gerard Mart\u00edn (Barcelona), Matteo Ruggeri, Pablo Barrios, Thiago Almada, Marcos Llorente, Cl\u00e9ment Lenglet, Marc Pubill, Giuliano Simeone, Robin Le Normand (Atl\u00e9tico)<\/p>\n
Date\/Time: Wednesday, April 8, 2026, 9pm CET\/WAT (Barcelona), 8pm GMT (UK & Nigeria), 3pm ET, 12pm PT (USA), 12.30am IST (India, Thursday)<\/p>\n
Venue: Camp Nou, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain<\/p>\n
Referee: Istv\u00e1n Kov\u00e1cs (ROU)<\/p>\n
VAR: Christian Dingert (GER)<\/p>\n
How to watch on TV: TUDN (USA), TNT Sports 2 (UK), SONY TEN 2 (India), SuperSport (Nigeria), Movistar (Spain), others<\/a><\/p>\n How to watch online: Paramount+<\/a> (USA), HBO Max (UK), Sony LIV (India), Movistar+ (Spain), others<\/a><\/p>\n Following a dramatic win over Atl\u00e9tico Madrid at the weekend to take control of the La Liga title race, Barcelona return to action for the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie against the same Atl\u00e9tico side at the Greatest Stadium on Earth on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n Bar\u00e7a come into this one looking for a strong result to take into next Tuesday\u2019s second leg in Madrid, but the weekend proved just how tough it will be to defeat Diego Simeone\u2019s side. Atl\u00e9tico had several reserves and Simeone rested almost all of his starters on the night, but the Colchoneros almost pulled off a draw despite playing the entire second half with 10 men.<\/p>\n Bar\u00e7a needed a late Robert Lewandowski winner to pick up all three points, and the Blaugrana will now face the strongest available version of an Atleti side who have had a ton of success in knockout clashes against Bar\u00e7a both in Europe and domestically \u2014 including their recent Copa del Rey semi-final.<\/p>\n Atl\u00e9tico have definitely been a Cup team this season, saving their legs and best football for non-La Liga matches and having quite a bit of success. Most of their damage has been done at home, however, with a poor away record in Cup competitions that makes it imperative for Bar\u00e7a to get a good result at Camp Nou, where they\u2019ve won every single game this season since returning to their iconic home.<\/p>\n Simeone\u2019s team will have the fitness advantage since they were afforded an opportunity to rest their starters in a game that didn\u2019t mean much at the weekend, while Bar\u00e7a needed their best players until the very end to win a crucial game in the title race. But we\u2019ve reached the point of the season where mental toughness should overcome physical tiredness, and the elite teams should be prepared to play their best players every three days if they want to win it all.<\/p>\n There are no surprises from a tactical standpoint as this will be the ninth of 10 meetings between them since the start of last season, and Bar\u00e7a know exactly what Atl\u00e9tico will do: sit back, absorb pressure, win the ball back in dangerous areas, and use the pace of their front four to create havoc on the counter against Bar\u00e7a\u2019s high line.<\/p>\n It\u2019ll be up to Hansi Flick\u2019s troops to be very good with the ball, control the transition game with great counter-pressing, and be extremely efficient in front of goal. Atl\u00e9tico don\u2019t allow a lot of chances, especially in big knockout matches, and Bar\u00e7a\u2019s front players will need to be at their very best in the final third with their finishing and decision-making.<\/p>\n Despite their positions in the La Liga table, there are no favorites in this tie. Atl\u00e9tico are extremely hard to beat in two-legged affairs and they get to decide the tie at home, but Bar\u00e7a are more than capable of getting the result they need at the Metropolitano even if things don\u2019t go well at Camp Nou. This is an 180-minute match, and Wednesday is only the first half.<\/p>\n Nothing will be decided at Camp Nou, but Bar\u00e7a can and should take a big step towards the semis if they play their best stuff. This is the time to separate men from boys, and I can\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n Barcelona (4-2-3-1): Joan; Kounde, Cubars\u00ed, Mart\u00edn, Cancelo; Eric, Pedri; Yamal, Olmo, Rashford; Lewandowski<\/p>\n Atl\u00e9tico (4-4-2): Musso; Molina, Pubill, Hancko, Ruggeri; Simeone, Llorente, Koke, Lookman; Griezmann, Alvarez<\/p>\n My head says this will be very close and things might not go that well, but my heart says Lamine Yamal will shine bright and Bar\u00e7a will take a very good result to Madrid: 3-1 to the home team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FC Barcelona vs Atl\u00e9tico de Madrid Competition\/Round: 2025-26 UEFA Champions League, Quarter-Finals, 1st Leg Barcelona Outs & Doubts:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[251783,4218,403,99],"class_list":["post-571329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-barcelona-match-previews","tag-barcelona-uefa-champions-league","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571329","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=571329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}