Barcelona receives Cádiz at the Camp Nou with an eleven that presents several rotations in all lines. Xavi Hernández’s team will seek to maintain the eight point advantage that Real Madrid has with Ansu Fati and Ferran Torres as the main novelties in attack and with Dembélé and Pedri absent due to injury.
Instead, captain Sergio Busquets returns to the squad with the intention of adding a few minutes and picking up the pace for the second leg against Manchester United. He is expected in the second part.
Without Busquets, the midfield will be formed by Frenkie de Jong, Gavi and Sergi Roberto while Pablo Torre and Kessié will start from the bench. Barcelona’s defense will be formed by Koundé, Eric Garcia, Christensen and Balde.
Barcelona: Ter Stegen; Koundé, Eric, Christensen, Balde; S. Roberto, F. DeJong, Gavi; Ferran Torres, Lewandowski and Ansu Fati.
Cádiz travels to Barcelona aware of its limitations, but with the dream of repeating the victory it achieved last season at the Camp Nou and with the clear objective of moving away from the relegation zone, from which two points separate it, since it is sixteenth with 22.
The people of Cádiz, who have recently shown a clear improvement with two 2-0 wins at home (Mallorca and Girona) and a defeat in Bilbao (4-1) in the last three days, then gave the bell and beat Barça (0 -1) with a goal from Galician striker Lucas Pérez, now at Deportivo de La Coruña.
Cadist coach Sergio González cannot count on Uruguayan Luis Alfonso Espino, one of the team’s most outstanding players and usual tenant on the left-back of the yellow box. Pacha Espino will not be in Barcelona due to accumulation of warnings and his replacement will be Paraguayan Santiago Arzamendia.
Cádiz also suffers the loss due to injury to substitute goalkeeper David Gil, defender Víctor Chust, midfielder José Mari Martín-Bejarano and striker Álvaro Negredo, who will be absent for the third consecutive week due to a groin strain.
The Balearic striker Sergi Guardiola, one of the winter signings from Valladolid and author of one of the two goals in the victory achieved last day against Girona (2-0), who took the Cadiz team out of the squad, has not entered the squad either. the relegation places.
In addition to the result from a year ago, Cádiz recalls that in the second round of the 2020-21 season, Barça was not able to prevent the Andalusians from scoring at the Barça stadium, in a match that ended with a draw (1-1), after Álex Fernández equalized from a penalty after the goal previously scored by the Argentine Leo Messi, the last one he scored in Spain in the League from 11 meters.
