Return of the Champions League round of 16, Barcelona-Naples 0-0 LIVE FROM 9 PM
Probable formations
Barcelona (4-3-3) : 1 Ter Stegen; 2 Semedo, 3 Piqué, 15 Lenglet, 18 Jordi Alba; 20 Sergi Roberto, 4 Rakitic, 21 De Jong; 10 Messi; 9 Suarez, 17 Griezmann. (13 Neto, 26 Inaki Pena, 33 Araujo, 24 Junior, 44 Mingueza, 28 Riqui Puig, 42 Monchu, 46 Reis, 47 Jandro, 31 Ansu Fati, 45 Konrad). Coach: Setien. Suspended: Busquets, Vidal. Beware: Griezmann, Messi, Semedo. Unavailable: Dembélé, Umtiti.
Naples (4-3-3): 25 Ospina; 22 Di Lorenzo 26 Koulibaly, 44 Manolas, 6 Mario Rui; 8 Fabian Ruiz, 4 Demme, 20 Zielinski; 7 Callejon, 14 Mertens, 12 Elmas. (1 Meret, 27 Karnezis, 23 Hysaj, 19 Maksimovic, 13 Luperto, 5 Allan, 68 Lobotka, 24 Insigne, 61 Politano, 11 Lozano, 99 Milik, 9 Llorente). Coach: Gattuso. Disqualified: none. Unavailable: none. Beware: Koulibaly, Llorente, Mario Rui.
Referee: Cakir (Turkey).
The eve of the match. "An Everest to climb", but also a game "to be played without fear". Rino Gattuso paints well the eve of the challenge of the year for his Napoli, the return of the round of 16 against Barcelona, with the dream of reaching the Champions League finals in Lisbon, writing an unprecedented page in Italian history. A very hard page, however, after the 1-1 draw at San Paolo and often for the opponent, on which Gattuso has no doubts: "I have heard the jokes - he says - of a Barca not in shape, who is missing half a team . They only have two suspended players and have a great team with young people who are a show. " A show to be enjoyed on TV, and here in Gattuso a breath of optimism escapes: "We can have - he explains - a small advantage due to the absence of the fans, because coming here and hearing 90,000 people sing is something you always pay for if you don't have great personality. But we also know it will be a very difficult match, we know the qualities of Barca, what kind of team they are, we know that we have to make a great technical and tactical performance and maybe it won't be enough even against a team made up of great champions. "
Napoli has high-level players and a group that hurts if they express themselves at their best. Gattuso does not yet know if he will have Insigne who has trained all the time with his teammates for the first time today but tomorrow he will have to tell the technician that he feels 100% and "at that point we and the doctors will decide if we think he is 100%. he puts on his shirt and gives us a hand. " It won't be easy but Lorenzinho will try, otherwise Elmas is ready to try to surprise the Catalan defense in the trident with Mertes and Callejon. Tomorrow, however, Gattuso focuses strongly on the midfield: "Fabian and Zielinski know that they are important games in their careers. Everyone knows it. After the lockdown we played every three days, we won the cup and we played some games with the handbrake on. , I don't know who has the most advantage but the numbers say that in the 12 games we have improved a lot on ball possession and we have created a lot, even if we don't always manage to finish ". The goals are expected from Mertens, who had scored in the Champions League in the last three against Genk, Liverpool and Barcelona and is fasting from the match against Milan on 12 July. But all of Napoli will try to break a statistic that says that Barcelona have not lost at home since May 2013 against Bayern Munich. An Everest, in fact, that the Azzurri will try to climb.
