Juventus play Barcelona tonight in the quarter-finals of the Champion’s League at the Nou Camp with the victors facing the winners of the Real Madrid-Manchester United tie in the last four.
Theteams shared a 1-1 draw in Turin a fortnight ago, so there is all to play for in the return leg at the Nou Camp.
Both teams go into the match on the back of good performances at the weekend. Barcelona held rivals Real Madrid to a 1-1 draw while Juve defeated Roma 2-1 to remain top of Serie A.
The Turin side came in for criticism from the press after the first leg for playing too cautiously, a tactic which backfired when Saviola grabbed a late equalizer after Montero has put the home side ahead.
The away goal gives Barcelona a slight advantage. However, Juve go into the game in confident mood and coach Marcello Lippi is predicting his new strike partnership comprising Alessandro Del Pieroand Marco Di Vaio will link up well.
“We are going to Barcelona in confident mood thanks to the way our strikers have bounced back,” he said.
“They did very well against Roma not only in terms of Del Piero’s goals.”
Lippi admits that he would take a repeat result tonight.
“I hope we repeat that result,” he says.
“Now we have Del Piero and Di Vaio who are in better shape that in the first match. Ihave to leave Trezeguet in Turin but we are used to play without important players.”
Juventus go into the game with Camoranesia slight doubt. He did not train yesterday but is expected to play.
Montero may start after missing the game at the weekend.
Buoyed by a good performance against Real, Barcelona go into tonight’s game knowing that defeat would certainly end any hopes of silverware this season.
Saviola returns to action after being suspended at the weekend and Luis Enrique will move back into midfield. Juan Pablo Sorin is not registered for the Champion’s League and Gabri is suspended, which means Mendieta may move into the back four.
Mendieta believes that his side’s away goal leaves them in good stead for tonight’s game and their best chance could by scoring breakaway goals.
“They have to come here looking for a goal and with our speedy forwards, that could be to our advantage,” he said.
“We need to make sure we don’t let Saturday’s performance go to our heads. There’ll be time for celebrating after Tuesday.”
Coach Raddy Antic compares tonight’s game to a cup final and believes that it will be a different kind of game compared to the one against Madrid at the weekend.
Antic said: “It’s a match against a verydifferent kind of rival compared to Real Madrid and our aim is to get through to the semi-finals. It’s a Cup Final for us”.
“This is our D-Day. It will be a full, noisy stadium and I want us to treat it like the final itself.”
“I can accept no excuses for not performing to our highest level against Juventus”
Probable teams:
Barcelona: Roberto Bonano, Carles Puyol, Frank de Boer, Patrik Andersson, Michael Reiziger, Marc Overmars, Xavi, Thiago Motta, Luis Enrique, Javier Saviola, Patrick Kluivert.
Juventus: Gianluigi Buffon, Lilian Thuram, Ciro Ferrara, Paolo Montero, Gianluca Zambrotta, Mauro Camoranesi, Alessio Tacchinardi, Edgar Davids, Pavel Nedved,
