Nineteen footballers from the first team but only two centrals. This is the X-ray of the team that travels this afternoon to Turin to play the second game of the Champions League on Tuesday against Juventus. To reach this extreme situation, several anomalous circumstances have had to occur. The first is Samuel Umtiti's ‘sine die’ injury, who has been missing since July 3; the second, the sanction of Gerard Piqué, that saw the red one unnecessarily against Ferencvaros; third, the frustrated signing of Eric García this summer when the player and Barça had already closed an agreement; the fourth, the departure of Jean Clair Todibo to make a little cash for the club's battered treasury; and the fifth, and last, the injury this weekend of the only central defender of the subsidiary registered in the Champions League, Óscar Mingueza. Faced with such a perfect storm, Koeman only has two centrals, Clement Lenglet and Ronald Araujo, for the match against Juventus.
The brazilian Matheus Fernandes, a signing that has not yet been nor presented and that it has taken six weeks to overcome a muscle elongation, still not counting for Koeman, who decided to leave it in Barcelona by technical decision.
Who are also still off the list, but due to injury, They are the aforementioned Samuel Umtiti with goalkeeper Marc André Ter Stegen. This week the striker has joined the casualty list Philippe Coutinho. As we have commented, Pique It is not in the call for sanction either.
In the list of 21 footballers who travel to Italy this afternoon, the presence of the team's two goalkeepers: Peña and Tenas.
The complete list of players for the game against Juventus this Wednesday (9pm) in Turin is: Neto, Sergi Roberto, Junior, Lenglet, Alba, Sergio Busquets, Pjanic, De Jong, Dest, Aleñá, Pedri, Griezmann, Messi , Trincao, Dembélé, Braithwaite, Fati, Araujo, Riqui Puig, Peña and Tenas