Team news has landed, and tonight’s line-ups look like this:
Barcelona: Szczesny, Kounde, Cubarsi, Martinez, Balde, De Jong, Gonzalez, Yamal, Lopez, Raphinha, Lewandowski. Subs: Pena, Kochen, Araujo, Gavi, Torres, Fati, Torre, Christensen, Victor, Garcia, Fort, Gerard.Borussia Dortmund: Kobel, Bensebaini, Anton, Can, Ryerson, Nmecha, Chukwuemeka, Adeyemi, Brandt, Bynoe-Gittens, Guirassy. Subs: Meyer, Laurenz Lotka, Yan Couto, Ozcan, Reyna, Beier, Duranville, Svensson, Sule, Watjen, Kabar.Referee: Espen Eskas (Norway).
Barcelona’s: Fermin Lopez is greeted by his club’s mascot, Cat, as he arrives at Estadi Olimpíc Lluis Companys. Photograph: Álex Caparrós/Uefa/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 20.43 CEST
Borussia Dortmund won seven of their first 10 games this season, happy times when they stuck four past Phonix Lubeck (yeah, I know), Heidenheim and Bochum and seven past Celtic, when their season was ripe with hope and optimism (even if all three of the non-wins were in the Bundesliga and they were therefore only sixth in the league when the run ended with three successive defeats ). Now they are eighth, three points behind Monchengladbach in sixth and also three points above 12th-placed Wolfsburg, the side that dumped them out of the German Cup back in October.
They have, in short, turned out to be not very good. Yet here they are, in the last eight of the Champions League, travelling to Barcelona and declaring, as their coach Niko Kovac did yesterday, that “we came here to win”. He has, it transpires, a cunning plan: “They have a lot of strengths but every opponent has weaknesses and we want to use them,” Kovac said. “It would not be wise to say what we have planned but we have an idea.”
Barcelona have played 22 games so far in 2025 and have lost none of them. They have at some stage been winning every one, even if they have been pegged back to draw four of them. They top La Liga and have a Copa Del Rey final to look forward to later this month. Their biggest worry would appear to be overconfidence. “Dortmund have a lot of classy players and they are in the quarters for a reason,” insists Hansi Flick, their Swabian coach. Well, we’ll see about that.
Welcome!
