Clash of the day | Part 1 | Barca into the quarters

The goalless first-leg of this one was a major shock given the impressive performances and results of Barcelona in the last month and a half. Xavi believed Barca now understand what went wrong and how to put it right.

LINEUPS

GALATASARAY

XI: Pena; Boey, Nelsson, Marcao*, van Aanholt; Kutlu, Antalyali; Babel, Cicaldau, Akturkoglu; Gomis

SUBS: Muslera, Cipe, Ozturk, Pulgar, Yilmaz, Dervisoglu, Bayram, Kilinc, Morutan, Mohamed, Arslan 

BARCELONA

XI: ter Stegen; Dest, Garcia, Pique, Alba; de Jong, Busquets*, Pedri; Traore, Aubameyang, Torres

SUBS: Neto, Tenas, Araujo, Lenglet, Mingueza, Puig, Nico, Gavi, Dembele, Braithwaite, L.de Jong

MATCH

It was a slow start to the game in Istanbul. As mentioned, Xavi believes Barcelona have understood and come up with an adequate solution to deal with Gala’s low block and defensive organisation from last week – perhaps taking it slow and being patient was the key message.

Not much was happening for The Blaugrana but anything that did happen tended to be courtesy of Adama Traore. The Spanish international set up his club and country teammate Pedri on the edge of the box but the youngster struggled to connect convincingly and the ball was aired wide of the goal.

Then, in their first attack of the match, Ryan Babel got in down the right-hand side for the Turks and caused some frustration and confusion between Eric Garcia and Jordi Alba as the ball was blocked out for a corner.

From the resulting corner, Romanian Alexandru Cicaldau put in an excellent ball arching out towards the back-post where captain Marcao got his body across to head home from around 12 yards, centre of goal, bouncing into the far corner.
Pedri was Barcelona’s spark in their response to that surprise opener and the re-incarnation of Andres Iniesta went on a mazy dribble before having a tame effort at goal.

Not long after, though, Frenkie de Jong, around 20 yards out, played a ball wide that was intercepted by on-rushing teammate Jordi Alba. The left-back played an intricate and delicate reverse pass into Pedri who, with the composure of a seasoned veteran forward, carried the ball five yards inside the box, letting one challenge go down and then another, before firing low and hard beyond La Masia graduate Inaki Pena.

Barca began to dominate and show their authority for the rest of the half and very nearly took the lead before the interval.

Adama Traore clipped a ball that ended up finding Aubameyang, when it had looked like the ball had gone beyond the Gabonese striker. Aubameyang looped a header over Pena and onto the top of the cross-bar before going behind for a goal-kick. 

The second-half started exactly how the first-half ended with Barca on top pushing for a goal – which duly arrived very quickly after the restart.

Another Barca attack was quite badly defended by Galatasaray and the ball fell to Sergio Busquets on the egde of the box. The veteran had his shot well saved by Pena who then managed to pull off an extraordinary save to deny Pedri’s rebound. 

However, the ball bounced into Frenkie de Jong who had the presence to head the ball back across goal for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to finish and continue his fine start to life at a new club.

The rest of the game saw Barcelona come on strong, looking every bit of the new team that Xavi has created but they rarely really threatened. Galatasaray, though, offered very little for the rest of the match. 

SUMMARY

Kick-off

GOAL: Marcai ’27 (1-0)

GOAL: Pedri ’36 (1-1)

Half-time (1-1)

GOAL: Aubameyang ’49 (1-2)

Full-time (1-2)