Barcelona - Rangers: Champions League Matchday 4 Preview

By: Isaiah | November 6th, 2007

Okay, I’m a little frazzled right now, but here’s preview you’ve all been so desperately waiting for: Rangers visiting the Camp Nou! It’s matchday 4 of the Champions League and we’ve already seen some complete lunacy in terms of scorelines. While winning 8-0 is probably fun for one side, it’s both heartbreaking for the losing side and boring for the neutral observer (though, really, are any of us really neutral? I want Liverpool out of this tournament, for instance); I don’t want Barca to win 8-0, though I’d prefer that to an 0-8 backside walloping. Not that I expect either to come close to happening.

Enough with the nonsense: Rangers are coming off a 2-0 win over Inverness Caledonian Thistle. And yes, you read that right. Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Awesome name, crap team, apparently. Not that losing to Rangers makes you crap. After all, Rangers are second in the SPL by 3 points to Celtic and Rangers even beat Celtic. Since the last time Barca met up with Rangers, the Scots have lost once (@Dundee 2-0) and won twice (@Motherwell 1-2 and against Inverness). So they’ve been doing their thing, basically keeping up with Celtic, scoring a couple of goals here and there, and generally just being a good squad.

Barcelona, of course, have beaten two at home (Almeria and Real Betis) and drawn once away (Valladolid). Rangers will be the same squad they were before, except they’ve got Darcheville and Hemdani back from injury, while Toure is back for Barca. Zambrotta won’t be able to play this time either (ankle injury, no real word on how long he’ll be out, but he hasn’t practiced since the Betis game…sigh…), so a lineup similar to that used against Valladolid is possible or Oleguer could make a return to the starting lineup. With Milito back to full speed, he’ll start, hopefully alongside Thuram, Puyol, and Abidal. It makes the most sense to start Puyol on the right, as he has the best game against Rangers the first time around and with Rangers manager Walter Smith admitting the team is going to play a defense-first style game once again, there is no reason not to put Puyol out there, despite the problems created by Valladolid last Thursday.

Ronaldinho, Henry, and Messi should start up front again and along with Iniesta and Xavi will no doubt be looking to rekindle what they had going for them against Betis. The major difference I see in this game is the return of Toure. His presence in midfield will force Rangers to counter along the wings more, than they might want to and will also allow for more freedom for Xavi and Iniesta. Barcelona will be looking for a quick early goal (when aren’t they?), but could get overzealous and leave themselves open to counter attack. Because of that I think it’ll be a more open game than the previous version.

Official Prediction: 2-1 Barcelona; goals by Ronaldinho and Messi. Rangers goal will be on the break late, when the offense tires and is replaced by Gio and Bojan.

I doubt Henry will have a good game, simply because of the physical nature of Rangers. They’ll have watched the tapes of the previous few games and will know to come out hard and with pressure, but they won’t be prepared for a rejuvinated lineup looking to get this group stage over with as quickly as possible. Henry will have to seriously step up his finishing in order to score and I don’t think he’s quite up for the task yet. The clock is ticking, Mr. Thierry…Eto’o is getting healthier by the minute.