Chelsea welcome Barcelona to Stamford Bridge Tuesday night in a UEFA Champions League tie that rivals Real Madrid vs Paris Saint-Germain as the most anticipated of the UCL round of 16. For Chelsea midfielder Cesc Fabregas, it’s a chance for him to face his close friend and former teammate for both club and country (but not his idol) Andres Iniesta.
Asked if Iniesta was his idol growing up, Fabregas responded: “You’re making him very old! He’s only three years older than me. We played with the Spain under-21s together. We’ve played together from when I was 18 years old.”
“I never saw him as an ‘idol’ because we always played together. I saw him as a teammate. A person obviously that I admire, but in a different way from an idol I looked up to when I was young.
“I used to look up to Guardiola, because he was playing in my position; I used to love Luis Figo when he was at Barcelona. These two were probably the ones I looked up to most when I was little.”
Let’s take a look at how Chelsea will try to counter Iniestia, and Lionel Messi (another friend of Fabregas’) on Tuesday night. Here’s who we think will be joining Fabregas in the Blues first team.
The Sports Bank’s Chelsea FC Starting XI Prediction:
Goalkeeper: Thibaut Courtois
Defenders: Gary Cahill, Cesar Azpilicueta, Andreas Christensen
Midfielders: N’Golo Kante, Cesc Fabregas, Victor Moses, Marcos Alonso
Forwards: Eden Hazard, Alvaro Morata, Willian
Odds: Chelsea 5/2, Draw 12/5, Barcelona 21/20
Injury Report for both teams: go to this link
Prediction: Barcelona 3, Chelsea 1
Feel free to post your own Chelsea and/or Barcelona starting XI predictions, as well as your best guess as to what the final score will be.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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