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The Champions League Round of 16 has begun and on Tuesday, Barcelona travel to face Olympique Lyonnais at the Groupama Stadium in Lyon. It is surely going to be an exciting tie as both the teams did pretty well in the group stages and will be looking forward to win the tie.
Barcelona were on top of a considerably tough group by defeating Tottenham Hotspur and Inter Milan. Ivan Rakitic, Ousmanne Dembele and Lionel Messi were some of the stars that shined.
Lyon on the other hand had an easier group and finished second behind Manchester City. The French outfit defeated City at the Etihad Stadium and drew at their home soil. Nabil Fekir, Memphis Depay and Moussa Dembele were among the best players.
#5 Barcelona's shaky defence
This season, Barcelona's defense has looked vulnerable. They have always leaked goals at the back. With Samuel Umtiti injured for the most of the season, Gerard Pique and Clement Lenglet both had to take care of the back. Barcelona just kept 2 clean sheets in the group stages and made many unnecessary errors.
Thomas Vermaelen has suffered a knock recently and will be out for this match, but the good news for Barcelona is the return of Umtiti. Though Umtiti may not be in the starting XI, he will be travelling to his former club Lyon.
The game is going to be controlled by the leader of Barcelona's defense, Pique, who has looked good for the past few games. But since he has played each and every game in the league and has not been rested, he might look tired on the pitch.
#4 The forwards of Lyon
Lyon have been pretty good in terms of scoring goals and their forwards this season have scored in each game of the group stage.
Depay and Dembele will lead the attack and will surely like to counter Barcelona's defense. Both the France internationals are in good form and have extraordinary pace and shooting ability that will surely test Barcelona keeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen.
Home advantage should really help Lyon and they would hope to score lots of goals.
#3 Teams current form
Barcelona have looked out of form and have been struggling to win matches and score goals. In the last 5 games, they have just won twice, dropping points on three occasions. In the last league match for Barcelona they were not able to create much chances and finishing was quite poor. Surely they will try to change it and score as many away goals as possible.
Lyon on the other hand have been in good form, winning 4 of their last 5 games and also defeating the Ligue 1 giants PSG by 2-1. They would be going into the match with much more confidence than Barcelona.
#2 MSD is back
After a few weeks on the treatment table, Ousmane Dembele was back on pitch starting Barcelona's last game. With the poor form of Philippe Coutinho, Dembele is more likely to start the match. Dembele has been terrific this season will complete the trio with Messi and Suarez.
Messi, the best player in the world and the top scorer for Barcelona both in the La Liga and the Champions League, will be looking to continue his form and keep scoring. He has scored 6 goals in Champions League this season and will surely like to add more.
Luis Suarez has not been in good form in the Champions League for the past 2 seasons. He has indeed just scored once this season in the tournament. Although because of his extraordinary finishing skills, he is likely to end his goal drought soon .
With Dembele's pace, Suarez's finishing and Messi's superpowers it will be almost impossible for Lyon to stop these three.
#1 Barcelona's hunger to win the Champions League
Barcelona's bitter rivals Real Madrid have won the trophy for the past three years and now they feel the hunger to win it. They will do their best to win the Champions League this season. Leo Messi and the coach have expressed a desire to win the coveted trophy in many of their press conferences too. After the extremely poor performance against Roma last season, they were knocked out of the competition. And this season they will leave no room for errors and will carry an extra motivation.
Barcelona are one of the best teams in the world, whether in form or not, they are among the hardest teams to defeat. Though they are playing away, they are favorites to win the match.
In the last five times, the teams have faced each other, Lyon has not even won once, with Barcelona winning three times and drawing twice. But the last time Barcelona defeated Lyon at the Lyon Stadium was in 2001.
The last time they faced each, Barcelona won 6-3 aggregate and continued their path to win the Champions Trophy.
Predicted Score: Lyon 1 - 2 Barcelona
