The FC Barcelona will meet Alavés on Saturday from 9 p.m. in the match corresponding to Day 23 of LaLiga. The Catalans will receive the Vitorians a few days after falling in the first leg of the Copa del Rey semi-finals against Sevilla. The result hit the Catalans, who must show character to recover and continue their battle for the league title against Atlético de Madrid.
With the Champions League round of 16 first leg against Paris Saint-Germain just around the corner, Everything seems to indicate that Ronald Koeman will rotate in some key positionsThe Dutch coach knows that some players need a break to get off the ground on Tuesday and can make some notable changes. Here’s our prediction of the lineups for both teams.
Possible alignments of the FC Barcelona-Alavés
- FC Barcelona: Ter Stegen; Mingueza, Lenglet, Umtiti, Jordi Alba; Busquets, De Jong and Riqui Puig; Trincao, Griezmann and Messi.
- Alaves: Pacheco; Martín, Laguardia, Lejeune, Duarte; Edgar, Pina, Manu García, Rioja; Joselu and Lucas Pérez.
Ter Stegen
Marc-André ter Stegen will have one more game under the stick to try to prevent Barça from scoring goals. The German will replace Neto Murara after playing the cup semi-final, as happened in the quarter-finals. This campaign has already had several high-level achievements and will try to continue that path against the babazorro team.
Mingueza-Umtiti-Lenglet-Junior Firpo
Due to the injuries of Sergi Roberto, Gerard Piqué and Ronald Araújo, Koeman’s possibilities for his defense are very limited. With Sergiño Dest almost recovered from his injury, but without a rhythm of competition, everything indicates that the coach will have Oscar Mingueza on the right and that he will bet on French duo Clément Lenglet / Samuel Umtiti as the focal point. In this way he would reserve the North American for PSG. In addition, Jordi Alba could rest easy thinking about the Champions League and Junior Firpo would take his place, who played right-handed in Seville.
Busquets-De Jong-Riqui Puig
In midfield, if Miralem Pjanic recovers in time, there are options for the Bosnian to sign up for Sergio Busquets. Just in case he doesn’t arrive, which is entirely possible, the normal thing is for the Badia player to still play with the risk of forcing him with the Champions League in the background. On the other hand, with this rotation policy, Frenkie de Jong or Pedri could rest to allow Riqui Puig accessTaking into account how the coach usually does things, the canary is more likely to start the game on the bench and the Matadepera player will play in his position.
Trincao-Messi-Griezmann
Up front, everything indicates that Dembélé or Griezmann will restOne of the two leaves his post with Francisco Trincao, who saved Barcelona a week ago against Betis with a goal in the last minutes. Given Ousmane’s injury history, chances are he’s the one to drop out of the starting eleven. Taking this into account, Leo Messi would theoretically start out as a ‘false 9’, Antoine on the left and the Portuguese on the right. If Martin Braithwaite has recovered, chances are the French or Argentinian will not be at the start either, but the Dane’s injury has disrupted Koeman’s plans.