Paris SG vs Barcelona Prediction - Time For Barça To Avenge Last September's Defeat

Next Wednesday, 15th of April 2015, the current French champions Paris SG will measure forces with the all-powerful Barcelona at Parc des Princes for the first leg of the Quarter-finals stage of the UEFA Champions League.

Despite being at the top of La Liga, Barcelona suffered a major upset over the weekend and allowed the title contenders and their all-time rivals, Real Madrid, to close the point gap between both sides to just two points. The Catalan team didn’t manage to get anything better than a 2-2 draw from their visit to the emblematic Sanchez Pizjuan. Barça started the match at full-steam and when on the 31st minute Neymar netted in the second goal, no one could have guessed that the former European champions would allow Sevilla to bounce back and score two goals.

Barcelona had control of the match, at least for a great part of the first-half, but a super scorcher from Ever Banega before the break, allowed the Andalusian team to get back in the game and, at the same time, to increase the pressure on a Barcelona that should have been much better on the second 45 minutes and that ended up conceding the equalizer on the dying moments of the match.

The upcoming match at Paris will certainly be a very complicated one for the Catalan team, who have already been defeated there earlier this season during the group stage of the UEFA Champions League. Last Saturday’s match could prove to be an huge blow to Barça’s motivation, and if we have in mind that the relationship between Luis Enrique and some the players probably isn’t the best, things could turn out to be really difficult for the Catalan side at Parc des Princes on Wednesday.

As for PSG, the Parisien team is highly motivated after winning the French Coupe de La Ligue last weekend. The current Ligue 1 champions smashed the first tier side of Bastia by 4-0 thanks to two goals from Zlatko Ibrahimovic and another two from Edinson Cavani.

Paris SG have already proved to be fairly inconsistent so far this season, but on international matches, the French side keeps showing a combative spirit that sometimes is nowhere to be seen in their league matches.

Despite « what happened back in September, it is hard to name any favourites for next Wednesday’s match, given the current form of both sides. Nevertheless, by playing home, PSG are favourites to win the match.

Paris SG

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - WWWWL

Barcelona

Stats: W-4 L-0 D-1

Recent Form - DWWWW

Possible Line-ups

Paris SG (4-3-3) - Sirigu - Digne - Marquinhos - Silva - Maxwell - Rabiot - Matuidi - Cabaye - Lavezzi - Pastore - Cavani

Barcelona (4-3-3) - ter Stegen - Montoya - Mathieu - Piqué - Jordi Alba - Busquets - Iniesta - Rakitic - Neymar - Suárez - Messi

Injury List / Suspended Players

Paris SG

Zlatan Ibrahimovic (sus)

Serge Aurier (sus)

Marco Verratti (sus)

David Luiz (inj)

Thiago Motta (inj)

Barcelona

Dani Alves (sus)

Vermaelen (inj)

Head-to-head matches:

Top Players:

Paris SG

Thiago Silva

Edinson Cavani

Adrien Rabiot

Barcelona

Lionel Messi

Luis Suarez

Neymar

Predictable Goal Scorers:

Paris SG

1. Edinson Cavani
2. Ezequiel Lavezzi
3. Javier Pastore

Barcelona

1. Lionel Messi
2. Luis Suarez
3. Neymar

Half-Time Score

Paris SG 0 Barcelona 1

Full-Time Score

Paris SG 1 Barcelona 1