Can Frankfurt cause upset at the revamped Camp Nou?

La Liga leaders Barcelona host Eintracht Frankfurt on Tuesday night as Champions League football returns to Camp Nou after over three years.

The Spanish giants extended their lead at the top to four points over Real Madrid after they battered Real Betis 4-1 on Saturday.

However, the Blaugrana suffered a 3-0 defeat at Chelsea in their last Champions League outing.

Frankfurt suffered a humiliating 6-0 defeat to RB Leipzig on Saturday. The Eagles also lost 3-0 to Atalanta last time out in the Champions League.

Match preview

Barcelona have failed to win either of their two meetings against Eintracht Frankfurt to date, with both of those coming in the UEFA Europa League semi-finals in 2021/22 (drew 1-1 away and lost 2-3 at home).

Ahead of the third meeting between Barcelona and Eintracht Frankfurt, the Catalan side have only faced two other opponents as many as three times in European competition without recording a victory: Dundee United (4 – L4) and Strasbourg (3 – D3).

Should they win here, the Eagles would become just the third team to win their first two away matches against Barcelona in European competition, after Dundee United (1966 and 1987) and Bayern Munich (1996 and 1998).

The Catalan giants have only won two of their last eight UEFA Champions League matches (D2 L4) and have conceded 3+ goals in five of those outings.

Since winning their opening game on MD1 (5-1 v Galatasaray), Frankfurt have gone winless across their last four UEFA Champions League outings (D1 L3) and failed to score in their last two. The last time they went three consecutive matches without scoring in major European competition was in September 1990 (3).

Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski has scored 15 goals in his last 15 starts against Eintracht Frankfurt across all competitions, including two hat-tricks in two 5-0 victories as a Bayern Munich player in this run (August 2018 and October 2020).

Lamine Yamal has been directly involved in 13 goals in the UEFA Champions League for Barcelona (7 goals, 6 assists). Should he score or assist in this match, he’ll overtake Kylian Mbappé (13) for the most goal involvements by a player aged 18 or younger in the competition’s history (since 1992/93).

Team news

Barcelona

Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Gavi and Dani Olmo are unavailable due to injuries.

Ronald Araujo is absent due to personal reasons, though the defender is not expected to feature in this game after his red card against Chelsea.

Eintracht Frankfurt

Michy Batshuayi was forced off with injury in their heavy defeat to Leipzig, and he misses out.

Top scorer Jonathan Burkardt is still out after suffering an injury against Atalanta.

Predicted line-ups

Barcelona: Garcia, Kounde, Martin, Cubarsi, Balde, De Jong, Pedri, Yamal, Fermin, Raphinha, Lewandowski.

Eintracht Frankfurt: Zetterer, Kristensen, Koch, Brown, Theate, Dahoud, Chaibi, Gotze, Doan, Bahoya, Knauff.