Barcelona’s UCL Selection Trouble
Hansi Flick has a lot of thinking to do to prepare for who will be on his squad in the first leg of the UCL Semi-Finals versus Inter Milan. Barcelona is faced with different issues, some injury based and others are more based on registration rules. While Barcelona is still very able to persevere through these difficulties, Inter Milan will likely be looking to exploit any weaknesses come match day. The Blaugrana faithful have to pray that Hansi Flick makes the right decisions coming into these Semi-Finals.
Injury Woes
The Blaugranas squad has a couple of key injuries. The long-time Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen has been injured for most of this season and won't be available for the first leg of the Semi-Finals. Barcelona has so far found success with the emergency goalkeeper signing Polish Wojciech Szczęsny, who came out of retirement to sign with Barcelona. In the defensive department, Jules Koundé and Ronald Araújo are both out for at least the first leg of these Semis versus Inter Milan. The midfield is not free of injury and fitness problems either with Gavi being doubtful to be selected due to muscular discomfort. Then you have Frenkie De Jong who suffered a thigh injury during international duty with the Netherlands, he is expected to be out for all of the Semi-Finals. Hansi Flick is going to have to find solutions to these injury problems.
The Rulebook Headache
The other issues Flick faces go back to Ter Stegen and Szczęsny, while they can avoid this issue for the first league at least since Ter Stegen won't be fully recovered until the second leg. Ter Stegen will not be able to play in the second leg unless Hansi Flick unregisters Szczęsny from the UCL squad to then register Ter Stegen in his play. This presents a problem because ever since Szczęsny has come in to fill in the void Ter Stegen’s injury, he has had an amazing season, maybe even his best in his whole career arguably. Some would argue it would be disrespectful to remove him from the UCL squad to put Ter Stegen back in to finish off the tournament. It might also be a tactical mistake since Ter Stegen needs to regain match fitness and may have some general rust when it comes to goalkeeping. Flick may decide to keep his locker room in check by keeping things as they currently are rather than possibly causing conflict. This is probably the safest way forward to gain a better chance of advancing to the Finals.
