Champions League preview: Barcelona v Schalke 04 (12:45 p.m. CT Wed., ESPNDeportes, 2 p.m. CT Thursday, ESPN Classic)

By: Kevin | April 8th, 2008

It’s GO TIME, baby! Some are saying that Schalke is going to roll over and die at the mere sight of the blaugrana, and the roaring multitudes singing away at our stirring Himno. I don’t think so. They were encouraged by their second half performance, when we seemed to lose interest, and they will be thinking that they left goals on the pitch at home.

Will they claim them?

I say hell no, but what else am I going to say? We don’t know who’s in the side yet, but we do know that Messi, Deco and Ronaldinho are all out, but nobody else is. So we can speculate all we like, but I think that we’ll see the same lineup that we’ve been seeing: Valdes, Puyol, Milito, Abidal (I think he’ll be back for this one….Sylvinho wasn’t sufficiently convincing), Zambrotta, Yaya, Xavi, Iniesta, Henry, Eto’o and Krkic. But if Rijkaard has half a brain, and I think that he does, we won’t see any more of that Eto’o as playmaker rubbish. He’ll be the striker, with Henry and Krkic menacing the wings. Iniesta will have to push up, filling that ball controlling Messi/Ronaldinho role as best he can, and off we go.

On paper, this isn’t a difficult tie, really. Schalke has had problems scoring goals everywhere. Home. Away. In the pub, in the club. They’ll have to come into our house and not only score, but hold a very offensive-minded side to a clean sheet. T’ain’t likely, binky.

Schalke’s weaknesses play to our strengths, as we saw in the first leg of this tie. Because Kuranyi likes the middle so much, where you have the brick layer cake of Yaya and Puyol/Milito, I just don’t see it happening there. Abidal will have to have a good game to keep the wing in check, and ditto for Zambrotta. Halil Alltintop won’t like that he was rendered pretty much invisible at home, and he’s a strong player.

But faith burbles through my heart and soul. And I believe that in the wake of Arsenal’s loss today, the deities will see fit to have one representative of the beautiful game in the semi-finals. We’re the only ones left.

Laporta visited practice today, and spoke to the lads in the locker room. Nobody knows what he said, but you can bet it wasn’t “So, how ’bout this Catalan weather, huh?” Was he inspirational, or just vexing? We’ll find out in too many hours.

As an aside, not to read anything into anything, but I had a dream and a nightmare last night. My family and I were watching the match, and we won, 1-0 off a howitzer blast of a volley by Henry, off of a busted play.

The nightmare was that we lost 2-0, thanks to a goal that ricocheted between Valdes’s forearms and up into the net, and an own goal from a defender who my addled mind seems to have conjured up. It was so distressing that I had to run in and check the computer to make sure that it was still Tuesday and not Wednesday night, and that the horrible thing didn’t happen.

Creepy in the extreme.

I’m predicting a 2-1 scoreline, with goals by Henry, Eto’o and Kuranyi for them. And off we go to face Manchester United, most likely.

I’ll update with squad lists as it becomes available.

Note the time update, and I’m mightily vexed. I have Deportes, so no worries for me, but everyone else is treated instead to Masters highlights. Ugh. Thursday will be the very delayed broadcast, no definite time yet.