Barcelona went into the second leg in Madrid needing to overturn a 2-0 first-leg defeat against Atletico Madrid in the Uefa Champions League quarter-finals. Pau Cubarsi was suspended after his red card in the opening match, while Alejandro Balde and Ronald Araujo were left on the bench as Dani Olmo, Jules Kounde and Joao Cancelo came into the side.
Joan Garcia started behind a Barcelona line-up that also included Joao Cancelo, Gerard Martin, Eric Garcia, Jules Kounde, Gavi, Pedri, Dani Olmo, Fermin Lopez, Lamine Yamal and Ferran Torres. The selection underlined the scale of the task for Hansi Flick's team, who had to find a way past a side that had already beaten them 2-0 and had done so in familiar territory.
Atletico made 10 changes from the team that lost 2-1 at Sevilla at the weekend, where Akor Adams scored from the penalty spot, Javier Bonar equalised and Nemanja Gudelj put Sevilla back in front before half-time. Diego Simeone set his team up in a 4-4-2 formation, with Juan Musso, Nahuel Molina, Robin Le Normand, Clement Lenglet, Matteo Ruggeri, Giuliano Simeone, Marcos Llorente, Koke, Ademola Lookman, Antoine Griezmann and Julian Alvarez all in the starting XI.
The tie carried extra weight because the clubs had already met in the Champions League knockout stages twice before, and Atletico had gone through in the quarter-finals in both 2014 and 2016. They had also played the second leg at home on both of those occasions, a detail that only sharpened the pressure on Barcelona to break the pattern this time.
The teams have now faced each other 251 times in all competitions, with Barcelona winning 115, Atletico taking 79 and 57 ending level. Barcelona arrived in Madrid after beating Espanyol 4-1 on Saturday, a result that moved them nine points clear of second-place Real Madrid with 79 points and seven games left. Ferran Torres scored twice in that game, both set up by Lamine Yamal, while Marcus Rashford added the fourth from a Frenkie de Jong cross.
That recent league surge sat uneasily beside the challenge in front of them on European duty. Barcelona had the form to believe in a comeback, but Atletico's record in this exact round against the same opponent meant the margin for error was slim from the first whistle.
