Barcelona vs. Bayern Munich: Players to Watch at the Camp Nou

On Wednesday, Barcelona will host Bayern Munich in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League semifinals. The Catalan giants were thoroughly outplayed by the German side in the first leg, losing 4-0 at the Allianz Arena.

Considering they are at such a disadvantage on aggregate, the Blaugrana will need to score early like they did against AC Milan in this season’s quarterfinals in order to even make the tie interesting. On the flip side, Die Bayern were absolutely brilliant in the first leg and completely exposed the Barcelona back-line, dictated the flow of play in midfield and made scoring opportunities extremely hard to come by through some fantastic marking.

A couple of years from now, this match-up could be looked at as a passing of the torch in terms of world football dominance. Barcelona have been widely considered the world’s best team for some time now. Led by Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi, Barca have three players who all regularly finish in the top five of Ballon d’Or voting, with Messi winning the honors each of the past four seasons. Bayern Munich have signed Barcelona’s former coach Pep Guardiola next season and have assembled one of the world’s best squads, including German wunderkind Mario Gotze, who will join the team on July 1st following a €37 million move from rivals Borussia Dortmund.

Below are a few players to keep your eye on when Barcelona host Bayern at the Camp Nou.

Lionel Messi

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