Barcelona coach Xavi warns his players that Inter ‘work well defensively and physically’ and believes the Catalans must be more effective up front to beat the Nerazzurri tonight.
Inter and Barcelona meet at the Nou Camp at 20.00 UK time in a crucial Champions League Group stage game. The Nerazzurri won 1-0 at San Siro last week, and Xavi expects a reaction from his players tonight.
“It’s an uncomfortable situation because we didn’t win in Munich and Milan, so we have the urgency to win,” he told Prime Video Italia.
“We face this game with a positive mentality and the desire to get three points. We can win this game with the help of our fans.
“We want to put in an excellent performance against a good Inter side,” he continued.
“They work hard defensively and physically, but we’ll try to impose our play and attack a bit better, as we did in the last 20-30 minutes in Milan.”
Inter defender Denzel Dumfries was lucky to get away with a quite evident handball in the final minutes of last week’s clash at San Siro, which was only the last one of the many referee controversies in games between the Nerazzurri and the Catalans.
Inter delimited Barcelona from the Champions League semi-finals in 2010 after two controversial games and eventually lifted the trophy at the Bernabeu, beating Bayern Munich 2-0.
José Mourinho was in charge of Inter at that time, while Xavi was one of Pep Guardiola’s players.
“It’s a bad memory, there were controversies in both games: red cards, penalties and off-sides,” said the ex-midfielder.
“I have bad memories because we didn’t reach the Final that eventually Inter won, but a semi-final is always a very intense match.”
controversies in both games but went both ways so Barca can’t complain