What’s your thoughts and predictions in first leg ?
Will give mine later i have mixed feelings on this...

The lack of experience already cost Chelsea in the home game, odds are someone like Christensen will again make a huge blunder...but miracles do happen so there is always that hope, Chelsea never does things the easy way.

@thebaldgenius Yeah, like Rai said, Coutinho cannot play in CL, he played in the competition for Liverpool so he is locked out of the competition for any other team this season.

@Golazo To be fair, it could be argued Azpi did the mistake with his pass in the first leg but I still think Christensen shouldn't have try that tackle, let way too much space for Iniesta. Still, I think Chelsea still got their chance, with the quality they have, they should be able to score at least one goal. The question is, how dominant will Barca be from playing at home.

In this round, everything is possible, even if it is 5% chance anyteam would make it through. Chelsea with the right tactic can nail it.

Obviously, inexperience can cost them the tie, but so does Barca's clumsy defense at time.

I still think the tie is as unpredictable as it was. If Barca doesnt score in the first half, or Chelsea somehow scores first, it will be very complicated

Man United is out, now Chelsea, please dont choke :(

Iniesta injury is a big blow, because Coutinho cannot play too. Let’s see what Valverde will do. Hopefully Paulinho.

If Chelsea manages to mark and slient Messi for the whole 90 mins without having 3 players attached to him, then they have big chance, Barca's recent games didn't impress me much. Although, Barca has much higher chance of winning

Lol I don't get it, how did united lost to Sevilla at home? Borderline embarrassment.

Messi doesn't bother me as much as Busquetes. Cut the source of passes and Messi will be isolated by himself. If we loose then there is no shame in loosing to one of the best teams in the world and honestly we aren't the team of 2012 with character and strong willed winning mentality players. Players should go there and play their hearts out and whatever happens won't change my opinion about this season.

@emo Whole team was zonal marking Messi not only Kante, its not a coincidence that Chelsea is the only team in England that limit Messi impact on a game, but it takes a lot of concentration and energy from them at the expense of attack. even indirectly his impact is Huge, even in a bad day Barça cannot get defensively exposed when Messi is on the pitch...

If it was that easy to stop him, all teams would do it. he starts actions from midlefield not from the box, so better make a foul on him before getting speed. if he does then its a fault + yellow card, or you should cover the space near the man marking him assuming he will get past him and most imprtant, cover the Left flank to not let him the possibility of Shooting.

If you realize all this, get him on a bad day, and have luck he wont get assisted like a " classic striker " in the box, then you dont expect to dominate the game because you leave much energy on applying this off ball zonal marking. and this should open space for his teammates that barely benefit from it until lately. If he was at Madrid, they would win treble each year. Marcelo would score 20 goals a year and Modric would be doing 50% of Messi duty making him only focused upfront...

Chelsea's tactic failed at home, with a 1:1 Barcelona doesn't even need to score a goal, they will play the slowest football ever and if Chelsea risks then they will hit us hard.

@Golazo Chelsea tactics all spot on, everything worked perfectly until the equalizer. Conte did more than i expected, clearly. he dismantled Alba-Messi linking, he covered space like a Roman Army, he obliged Barça to go to the wings where they were in number there. Conte won the tactical battle vs Valverde in first leg no matter the result...

Excuses for Messi again or what...sorry but he's just not that good when focused and marked tight, Hazard was even more focused, he got fouled 5 times that's nothing compared to Messi going deep and wanting the ball in his feet to waste time...

which is why players like dembele needs to make an impact to lift the burden of messi. Valverde should learn that chelsea is going to crowd the midfield where messi is most effective. a quick winger would give that extra option on the flanks.

@thebaldgenius Thats actually pretty genius. ;P

So Hazard and Messi are both marked by each other team. The answer will propably come from the other player in my opinion. I wouldn't be suprised to see Barca play extra defensively.

my preferred barcelona line up:

            Ter Stegen

sergi      pique    umtiti   alba

         busquets  paulinho

               messi

         dembele    suarez

Conte won the tactical battle vs Valverde in first leg no matter the result...

Doesn't matter when the tactic failed and now Chelsea has no idea how to win the game when Barcelona plays ulta slow paced possession football, the result is all that matters.

@emo, I think Valverde will prefer a safer and solid option. but come on, 0-0 will be boring.

@thebaldgenius I agree, imagine if it end up 1-1 and goes on to penality, what a thrill it would be. :D

I dont think Barça will go all in in attack, if i was Valverde i would leave the ball to Chelsea and hit them. Dembele wont play imo, risky to make him start. Barça will be obliged to probably play 4-4-2 or maybe 4-3-3 with Vidal in the right flank. he could also play Semedo RB and put Sergi in Midlefield. i think he wont take risks considering the importance of the outcome...

there will be no 0-0, i see a win with Barça playing like second leg vs Espagnol. false rythme and changing it suddently into one acceleration.

I would love one of these two :

semedo-----Pique---Umtiti----Alba

Sergi----Busquets---Paulinho---Rakitic

Suarez----Messi

or 4-3-3 : Busquets --- Paulino --- Rakitic

Vidal---Suarez---Messi

There was no Anti-Hazard mission, Barca played most of the game with the ball. and does not have this defensive skills to do that, Suarez press keeper and first defender, Iniesta and Messi Barely defended. Only Busquets - Rakitic help the back four so No.

If Conte plays Hazard as false 9 again Chelsea will lose, the tactic from the first game didn't work and if it's used again it's counter productive since Barcelona wouldn't care to just keep the ball around the half of the pitch the whole game so giving them 70% possession is a loss by default since Chelsea needs a goal.

Otherwise it's all about Barcelona not taking the advantage from the first game that will put Chelsea through, meaning that Barcelona would need to lose at home or Chelsea would need to score 2 goals and go through in a 2:2 draw cause of the away goal...

None of those things actually happen this season to Barcelona, they let in less than 0.5 goals per game in the league/CL and have almost an 80% win rate in La Liga, they beat Juventus 3:0 at home in CL group stage as well. Just a slow tactical football and experience they look like they don't even need to do anything special to pass inexperienced Chelsea, sad but true.

There was no Anti-Hazard mission, Barca played most of the game with the ball.

Stats say otherwise, Hazard got specially dealt with and once Morata came in and Hazard moved from the false 9 he got fouled 2-3 times, in total 5 fouls on Hazard.