A sluggish Barcelona suffer an unexpected stop

The Europa League is not the Champions League but it is a European competition and this Barcelona Xavi is building need titles to grow. The Blagurana are favourites for the tournament. And this tie looked relatively easy. That couldn’t be further from reality. The game at Camp Nou was a goalless draw and brought all the hope at the club to an unexpected standstill after four wins in a row.

Barcelona rotated heavily - Pique, Busquets, Aubameyang and Dembele to the bench, Gavi was suspended and Alves not registered, and were slow to get going. Only two Memphis thumps from distance threatened Inaki Pena, who responded well. A lot of control but not much penetration. Xavi did not like what he saw, with Pique, Busquets and Dembele thrown on. 15 minutes later Auba joined them. They improved but not by enough. Not even Luuk de Jong could help. Now they have to win in Istanbul.