Three talking points ahead of Barcelona vs Eintracht Frankfurt | UEFA Champions League | OneFootball

The Spotify Camp Nou is set to host its first UEFA Champions League game after its renovation tomorrow night as FC Barcelona play host to Eintracht Frankfurt at the glorious venue.

A lot has been said about the game in the media, especially with Barcelona making the game tickets available to socios only, and the club still finding some members to have sold tickets to German fans.

With all the restrictions combined with the passion of the Champions League returning home, one can expect a thunderous atmosphere at the Spotify Camp Nou, and the team will be determined to deliver a special performance.

Barça Universal brings you three talking points ahead of Barcelona vs Eintracht Frankfurt.

A must-win situation

Barcelona are the leaders of La Liga by four points after Real Madrid’s latest slip-up, but their situation in the UEFA Champions League is anything but favourable.

After all, they have not been clinical in the competition, and recent results have not helped their cause in any capacity. Of their five games so far, Barcelona have lost to PSG and Chelsea and drawn against Club Brugge, all of which place them in a complicated position.

Finishing in the top eight, now, is no longer in their hand. While it is not impossible, they simply cannot afford to drop any more points in the league stage and have to hope for others’ results to go their way.

Winning on Tuesday night, thus, is almost non-negotiable for the Catalans, for all their hopes of a top-eight finish rest on the same.

Hansi Flick’s men enter the game on a good run of form and have scored 11 goals in their last three league games, winning all three. Carrying forward that form and taking three points against a complicated opponent, needless to say, is essential.

Where should Yamal play?

Barcelona’s new central attacking midfielder? (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

With Raphinha rested at the weekend, Hansi Flick opted for a novel formation against Real Betis and deployed Lamine Yamal in the No. 10 role.

It was the first time the youngster was deployed in the role, and while he did take his time to adapt to the new position and the challenges it brought, he wreaked havoc on the opposition defence once he settled in.

Given that it was his first time in the role, he dropped deeper than usual to collect balls and progress the play forward. His passes and dribbles, however, opened up the attack with ease for his teammates.

Raphinha will return to action tomorrow, and it is more than likely that Flick opts to return Yamal to the right wing with Fermin Lopez starting as the attacking midfielder. There is, however, a strong case to continue the experiment that worked well midweek.

The big question for Flick, thus, is where to deploy Yamal tomorrow – whether to give continuity to the experiment that worked well at the weekend or return to the traditional system that has become a trademark of the team.

What about De Jong?

Barcelona’s strong form over the past few games, coincidentally, has come without Frenkie de Jong on the field, and the player’s return from his illness and personal reasons places the manager in a tricky spot.

In the last game, the Dutchman started on the bench, and Flick persisted with the Pedri and Eric Garcia combination in the deep midfield. The duo dished out a fine performance and dominated the middle of the park.

De Jong, meanwhile, came off the bench and also played a tidy cameo, and it is clear that the manager cannot keep a player of his quality on the bench going forward.

Tomorrow, Flick must thus identify the best way to combine all three players’ profiles, and he has a couple of options to choose from.

The first is the most obvious and likely solution – which is to push Eric Garcia to defence and Frenkie de Jong alongside Pedri in the midfield.

What that will do, however, is push either Kounde out of his right-back role or Gerard Martin from his centre-back role.

Another option is to keep the working Pedri-Garcia pivot and move De Jong to an attacking midfield role – but that manoeuvre comes with the cost of leaving Fermin Lopez out of the starting XI.

The manager, therefore, must weigh the pros and cons of all available combinations and decide where De Jong is placed best without affecting the harmony of the working combination – something that is easier said than done.