Thursday’s second leg of the UEFA Europa League knockout round playoff between Manchester United and Barcelona will be played at Old Trafford.
The English and Spanish teams drew 2-2 in the first leg last Thursday at Camp Nou.
Both teams have recently appeared to be doing well in their respective leagues, with Barca currently leading La Liga after defeating Cadiz 2-0, and Manchester United moving up to third place in the Premier League after beating Leicester City 3-0.
Although we still have work, Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag acknowledged that we should have won the first leg. It was a really high-performance level, and I was really pleased with the performance of my team. We have two good teams at the highest level.
The head coach of the Spanish team, former Barcelona legend Xavi, praised the opposition’s counterattacking play.
They play excellent counterattacking football, according to Xavi, with Rashford slipping in behind and Bruno (Fernandes) finding long passes. “We wanted to settle the game down from the constant end-to-end play (in the first leg), but United are very good at playing how they want to,” said the referee.
Due to injuries, Manchester United midfielders Christian Eriksen and Donny van de Beek will be unable to participate in the upcoming Europa League match. It’s also questionable whether Brazilian winger Anthony and French attacker Anthony Martial will make the Barcelona game roster.
Due to injuries, French winger Ousmane Dembele and Spanish midfielder Pedri will also be absent from the Barca game squad.
UEFA Europa League fixtures:
Nantes (France) – Juventus (Italy) (1-1)
Midtjylland (Denmark) – Sporting Lisbon (Portugal) (1-1)
Monaco (France) – Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) (3-2)
PSV Eindhoven (Netherlands) – Sevilla (Spain) (0-3)
Manchester United (England) – Barcelona (Spain) (2-2)
Rennes (France) – Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine) (1-2)
Union Berlin (Germany) – Ajax (Netherlands) (0-0)
Roma (Italy) – Salzburg (Austria) (0-1)
