{"id":283114,"date":"2025-10-07T03:31:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T03:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/283114\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T03:31:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T03:31:16","slug":"barcelona-meet-psg-in-massive-early-champions-league-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/283114\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona meet PSG in massive early Champions League clash"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/strong> Neel Shelat<\/a><\/p>\n

A 13th meeting in as many years<\/p>\n

Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain have been quite well-acquainted with each other in recent years. Of their 15 previous meetings, all but three have been played since 2013, and every single one of those has been in the UEFA Champions League.<\/p>\n

The Spanish giants have a slight upper hand in the Champions League head-to-head record with five wins, four losses and three draws. However, they were the losers in the last two ties \u2013 both in the 2024 quarter-final and 2021 Round of 16. So, their last aggregate win over PSG came in March 2017 on a famous night at Camp Nou, which has been subsequently immortalised as La Remontada.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

No showdown between Ballon d\u2019Or frontrunners<\/p>\n

PSG and Barcelona\u2019s attacking stars finished first and second in the latest Ballon d\u2019Or, as Ousmane Demb\u00e9l\u00e9<\/a> came away with the award while Lamine Yamal<\/a> had to make do with just the Kopa trophy. However, as their two teams face off just over a week after the ceremony, they will not be having a showdown on the pitch.<\/p>\n

The French forward is not expected to return until after the international break due to his hamstring injury, so he is sure to miss this match. Lamine Yamal only returned from his groin injury on the weekend and made a telling contribution off the bench, but his minutes might well remain limited this week.<\/p>\n

Long injury list<\/p>\n

Besides the two big-name forwards, there is a sizeable list of absences for this match.<\/p>\n

Barcelona are once again undergoing a mini-crisis in the goalkeeping department as Marc-Andr\u00e9 ter Stegen<\/a> was recently joined by summer signing Joan Garc\u00eda<\/a> on the sidelines, so Wojciech Szcz\u0119sny<\/a> will start and Diego Kochen<\/a> will serve as a backup after being recalled from the Under-20 World Cup. Attackers Raphinha<\/a> and Ferm\u00edn L\u00f3pez<\/a> remain unavailable, while Gavi<\/a> is not expected to be back until the new year following his latest setback.<\/p>\n

The visitors\u2019 captain Marquinhos<\/a> and young forward D\u00e9sir\u00e9 Dou\u00e9<\/a> are both sure to sit this game out, while midfielders Vitinha<\/a>, Jo\u00e3o Neves<\/a> and Fabi\u00e1n Ruiz<\/a> as well as winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia<\/a> are all listed as doubtful. So, they could well end up fielding quite a depleted line-up.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A stern test for PSG\u2019s new signings<\/p>\n

Having won the treble with one of the youngest squads in Europe last season, Paris Saint-Germain did not see a need to do much in the transfer window. They just made a couple of signings, replacing Gianluigi Donnarumma with Lucas Chevalier<\/a> from Lille and bringing in Illia Zabarnyi<\/a> to add some youth and depth to the right centre back position.<\/p>\n

Both of them are set to start against Barcelona, so this will be their first serious defensive test against an opponent of equal calibre.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Prediction<\/p>\n

Neither side is going to be at full strength, but that should not keep us from being treated to a cracking contest. Both attacks should have enough quality to get on the scoresheet, but Barcelona might just have enough to edge out a narrow win.<\/p>\n

(Cover image from IMAGO)<\/p>\n

You can follow every game from the Champions League with FotMob this season \u2013 featuring deep stats coverage, xG, physical metrics, and player ratings. Download the free app here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Neel Shelat A 13th meeting in as many years Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain have been quite well-acquainted…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":283115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-283114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115330776352080155","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}