PREVIEW: Slavia Prague v FC Barcelona

Barça travel to the Czech Republic knowing that a win in this match and the return will leave them just a point away from qualifying from Group F to the Champions League knockout stage.

How to follow the game live

The match kicks off at 9.00pm CEST. A list of broadcasters can be found here and these are the timetables for the rest of the world.

The Rival

Stadium: Eden Arena 

Coach: Jindřich Trpišovský

Czech First League Record (2019/20): P13 W11 D2 L0 F28 A3

Interesting stats and facts

Barça have won all four of their Champions League fixtures against Czech opponents (Sparta Prague in 99/00 and Viktoria Plzen in 11/12).

Slavia Prague will be the 57th different team that Barça have faced in the Champions League. They have won at least once against 54 of the other 56, only failing to defeat IFK Gothenburg and Borussia Dortmund.

Barça have not scored in their last two away Champions League games. They have never failed to score in three consecutive away games in the competition.

Slavia have won just four of their last 19 home European matches, failing to score in 12 of those.

Barça have lost only one of their last 30 Champions League group stage matches; a 3-1 defeat at Manchester City in November 2016. They remain unbeaten in their last 16 games, winning 11 and drawing five.

First meeting in the UCL

This will be the first meeting between the two teams in the Champions League, and in fact, it is the first official match of any kind between them.

It is not the first time they have met, however. Between 1920 and 1934, the clubs played on eight separate occasions, all of which were friendly matches and all played in Barcelona.

16 March 1920 - FC Barcelona 3 (Alcántara, Martínez, Sancho) Slavia Prague 2
19 March 1920 - FC Barcelona 0 Slavia Prague 0
21 March 1920 - FC Barcelona 6 (Alcántara 2, Sesúmaga 2, Martínez, Vinyals) Slavia Prague 0
30 December 1923 - FC Barcelona 1 (Marti) Slavia Prague 0
1 January 1924 - FC Barcelona 2 (Sagi, Piera) Slavia Prague 3
6 January 1930 - FC Barcelona 6 (Arocha, Goiburu, Parera 2, Diego, Garcia) Slavia Prague 3
1 January 1934 - FC Barcelona 2 (Arnau, Goiburu) Slavia Prague 3
6 January 1934 - FC Barcelona 2 (Quico, Artigas) Slavia Prague 3

The squad

Ernesto Valverde named a 20 man squad for Wednesday night’s encounter:

Ter Stegen, N. Semedo, Piqué, I. Rakitic, Sergio, Todibo, Arthur, Suárez, Messi, O. Dembélé, Neto, Lenglet, M. Wague, Griezmann, Jordi Alba, F. De Jong, Vidal, Junior, Iñaki Peña and Ansu Fati. 

Sergi Roberto and Samuel Umtiti are missing due to injury with Carles Aleñá and Carles Pérez also missing out after not being selected.