BARCELONA — Ronald
Araujo returns to FC Barcelona's match day squad, 156 days after picking up an
injury in the quarter-finals of the Copa America. With the hamstring injury
that needed surgery now behind him, the Uruguayan defender has been included in
the Barca squad for the game against Borussia Dortmund.
It is the first time that Araujo has been called under Hansi
Flick, and it comes for Barca's trip to the Signal Iduna Park on Thursday (IST)
in the Champions League.
Both teams have been in red-hot goal-scoring form, putting
their opponents to bed with their impeccable striking prowess.
While Dortmund
hasn’t had the best results in the Bundesliga, Nuri Sahin’s team has been
making up for that in the Champions League. They are currently sitting in
fourth place on the table with four wins and one loss and an average scoring
rate of 3.2 goals per match, which will be a handful for the Catalan giants to
handle.
The trio of Gittens, Guirassy, and Adeyemi have been
wreaking havoc on the defence lines of each team they have faced, with 11 out
of the 16 goals scored by the team overall. On the other hand, Barcelona should
not be ruled out with their new crop of players, Hansi Flick’s high defensive
line tactics, and their enigmatic captain, Raphinha Dias, who is their top
scorer in the Champions League so far.
Despite sitting in third place in the UCL table, Barcelona
will be looking to shake off their performances in recent weeks which has seen
the Hansi Flick led side drop points in four of their last five League games.
Barcelona squad against Dortmund:
Cubarsi, Balde, R Araujo, I Martinez, Gavi, Ferran,
Pedri, Lewandowski, Raphinha, Inaki Pena, Pablo Torre, Fermin, M Casado, Pau
Víctor, Lamine Yamal, Olmo, F De Jong, Kounde, Eric, Szczęsny,
Astralaga, H Fort and Gerard Martín.
