Xavi’s Barcelona will battle against Pep Guardiola’s Man City at Camp Nou in a friendly encounter to honor former Barca player and assistant coach Juan Carlos Unzue and raise funds and awareness in the fight against ALS.
Match Details:
Date: Wednesday, August 24th, 2022
Time: 9:30 pm CET (Barcelona), 8:30 pm WAT (Nigeria), 8:30 pm GMT (UK), 4:30 pm ET, 01:30 pm PT (USA), 12:00 am IST (India, Thursday), 12:30 am PST (Pak, Thursday)
Competition: Friendly
Venue: Camp Nou
Match Overview:
Fc Barcelona and Manchester City are set to face each other at Camp Nou on the 24th of August for a friendly match to raise awareness and funds for ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and to honor Juan Carlos Unzue.
Juan Carlos Unzue is a former Barcelona player who served the club for two years between 1988-1990 as a player and then returned as a goalkeeping coach for seven years from 2003 to 2010. He also served as an assistant under Luis Enrique when he was the manager of the club. He was diagnosed with ALS in 2020 and is fighting the disease since then.
Despite being a friendly match, both teams are expected to field strong starting line-ups with the aim to come out victorious as the taste of failure is always bitter.
The approach Xavi chose for the game against Real Sociedad was rather different from what we could see before, a kind of a 3-4-3 with some tweaks in it. Due to the absence of Busquets, Frenkie started in the heart of the midfield, who was often paired with Pedri to form a double pivot, which would ease buildups and relieve pressure from the defense.
Since this is a friendly encounter, Xavi can count on Kounde, and Busquets is also expected to return in the starting eleven. We can see a midfield trio of Busquets, Pedri, and Frenkie de Jong.
Gerad Pique who hasn’t featured in Barca’s last two games is expected to start tonight alongside Jules Kounde. Balde’s performance against La Real was impressive and he is expected to maintain his spot in the eleven while we can see Sergi Roberto at the Right Back spot to give some rest to Ronald Araujo.
All in all, an ever-entertaining contest is expected to take place in front of us, and a tight, fierce battle will decide the fate of the game. This is a match where both teams have the quality and potential to prevail, and both are able to snatch the victory. But who will win? Let’s find out soon.
Barca win 5-0