Manchester United and Barcelona are set to battle it out for a spot in the last four of the Champions League when they meet at Old Trafford on Wednesday under the lights.
The Red Devils have seen a dip in form heading into Wednesday with three losses in four games after losing a 1-0 lead to face a 2-1 defeat to Wolves last week.
This is the first time Manchester United will compete in the quarter-finals since 2014 when they were knocked out 4-2 on aggregate by Bayern Munich. They’ve advanced four times in the last six appearances in this round.
Barcelona are unbeaten in 16 games with 11 wins and five draws after Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez put them one step closer to the La Liga title with a 2-0 win over Atletico Madrid.
The Blaugrana are taking part in the 12th consecutive quarter-final, winning seven of them and have lost the last three, most recently against Roma.
Ernesto Valverde’s side are winless in their last six games away from home in the knockout stage of the tournament since beating English side Arsenal 2-0 in 2016.
United have one win in eight against the Spanish champions which came in the semifinals back in 2008 at Old Trafford with a 1-0 victory; before that they last won in 1991. Barcelona were victorious over the Red Devils in the 2009 and 2011 finals and they haven’t met since then in the competition.
Team news
Eric Bailly, Matteo Darmian, and Antonio Valencia remain out, Alexis Sanchez trained but won’t be fit enough to face his former club while Marcus Rashford missed the loss at Wolves and is questionable. Ander Herrera and Nemanja Matic will both miss out after not making the final squad. Luke Shaw and Ashley Young are a booking away from missing the second leg.
Rafinha is out for the visitors, Ousmane Dembele has been out injured but was included in the traveling squad, Ivan Rakitic is set to make his 100th UEFA appearance, and Nelson Semedo will miss the second leg if he picks up a yellow card.
Messi heads into the game leading the scoring chart with eight goals in eight games.
Kickoff is at 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon at Old Trafford. The game will be streamed in Canada on DAZN.
Pierre's Footy Talk 