Barcelona vs Athletico Madrid

Barcelona vs Atletico Madrid - Squad List

FC Barcelona will face their away leg game against defending champions Atletico Madrid today in Wanda Metropolitano, kick-off at 9 pm CEST. Atletico is currently in the 4th place of the league table with 2 draws and 1 loss while Barca remains in the 7th with one game in hand. Though the league campaign is at it’s early stages, today’s game will be crucial for both teams to compete for the title.

Yesterday FC Barcelona posted the squad list for the away leg against Atletico game and one main change has been made because of injury concerns. Spanish veteran left-back Jordi Alba has been included in the squad replacing young Pedri who will be out for 2-3 weeks according to [as].

In the last last match against Benfica Koeman chose to play Pedri, which was a surprising decision for everyone. After coming from an extremely tiring season including Olympics, Blaugrana manager decided to play him straightaway after a small break. As a result of that, Spanish midfielder got injured and didn’t play for a long time.

Most of the media outlets were reporting that Pedri is not 100% recovered to play the game against Benfica but Koeman even played him in the starting lineup itself. In that embarrassing loss against Benfica youngster played 68 minutes and got injured again. Same kind of scenario happened to Alba who will play today after almost 3 weeks of absence.

[MEDICAL UPDATE] ❗️

☑️ @JordiAlba has received the medical green light
❌ @Pedri is out with a left thigh injury and his recovery will dictate his return. #AtletiBarça pic.twitter.com/tdx29cJqGR
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) October 1, 2021

Inclusion of Jordi Alba will be a huge boost to the whole squad because Barca suffered during last three games, lacking of a proper Left back. La Maisan young fullback Alejandro Balde who considered as Alba’s successor also got injured in an unfortunate way against Granada which was his first official start for the first team.

(Check the latest news about Alejandro Balde by clicking this link)

Since there isn’t any shortage of talented midfielders for Barcelona, Pedri’s absence will not be a huge impact for today’s game. On the other hand talented youngsters like Puig, Nico, Demir and Gavi will get more game time. But that will solely depends on Koeman’s decisions which are always unpredictable and unsolvable mysteries for all the culers.

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