Xavi Drops Several Players For Viktoria Plzen As He Asks His Players To Be Professionals

Written By Onyeka Daniel

Barcelona will be traveling to Czech Republic to play against Viktoria Plzen in their last game of this season’s UEFA Champions League group stage as their fate in the tournament is already decided.

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They will be playing in the Europa League instead when European football resumes next year after finishing third behind Bayern Munich and Inter Milan. With every place in the group already known, this game will be of little significance.

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But Barcelona coach, Xavi Hernandez wants his players to be professionals and maintain their pride for this game as he’s expected to ring several changes for the starting lineup in this match.

“They are still Barca players. They are at the best club in the world”, “They must show they want a place here. We are in a situation that we did not expect, but they must show their pride as Barcelona players.” He said.

The coach decided to leave out several players in his first team squad back in Spain, to give them time to rest, given that there is nothing at stake for this game. At the weekend both Jules Kounde and Eric Garcia left the pitch against Valencia, sustaining muscle strains.

They join Ronald Araujo, Andreas Christensen and Memphis Depay on the treatment table. The duo of Robert Lewandowski and Sergio Busquets were also left behind as the striker has played 90% of Barcelona matches this season.

Four Barca Atletic players have been called up to fill out the squad. Marc Casado, Ilias Akhomach, Alvaro Sanz and Alex Valle have all been called up. Left-back Valle is the only one who has not been called up to the first team, while Casado could make his senior debut with Barcelona.

Several news outlets are reporting that Xavi will start the duo of Pablo Torre and Inaki Pena for this game. Pena is yet to feature for Barcelona this season with Torre restricted to brief substitute cameos in domestic and European action in recent weeks.

Meanwhile…

Lewandowski has admitted that he didn’t expect everything to go smoothly during his first year at Barcelona after forcing a move from German side, Bayern Munich (one of the teams responsible for their elimination in the UCL) to Spain.

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Personally, he couldn’t have asked for a better start as he has enjoyed an impressive start to life at the Camp Nou, with 18 goals from 17 games, across all competitions, but the team has struggled.

“I’m in a team where I dreamt of playing and I’m proud to be here”, he said. “I did not expect to arrive and everything to go perfectly in the first season. But, it’s a process that requires time and patience.” He further added.

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