It’ll have been just shy of four years since Manchester United’s last outing at the Nou Camp when Erik ten Hag‘s side travel to Catalonia in February.
The Red Devils were drawn against the Spanish giants in today’s Europa League play-off draw in Nyon, Switzerland.
It’ll be Ten Hag’s first managerial meeting against Barca, and he’ll be reunited with his former Ajax midfielder Frenkie de Jong who he was keen to bring to Old Trafford last summer.
Both Xavi and Ten Hag are undergoing rebuilds at two of the biggest clubs in Europe, and while Blaugrana sit top of La Liga and show signs of mounting a title challenge to Real Madrid they’ve dropped into the Europa League for the second consecutive campaign.
While the Reds managed to scrape into the Europa League after enduring our worst season in Premier League history to finish the 2021-22 campaign.
Manchester United XI that last faced Barcelona
After pulling one of the greatest comebacks in Champions League history at the Parc des Princes against Paris Saint Germain in the last-16, Manchester United were drawn against Ernesto Valverde’s Barca in the quarter-finals.
Having lost 1-0 against Valverde’s side at Old Trafford following a Luke Shaw own goal, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side were hoping to pull off yet another miraculous recovery in Europe at the Nou Camp.
But the twenty-time league champions couldn’t pull off the great escape twice and Barca cruised to a 3-0 win and advanced to the semi-finals 4-0 on aggregate.
David de Gea let a somewhat tame Lionel Messi effort squirm through his grasp before the Argentine conjured up some of his magic.
Philippe Coutinho scored a screamer before irking the home faithful by putting his fingers to his ears in response to the criticism he had received following his huge move from Liverpool.
The starting line-up in April 2019 was: De Gea, Jones, Smalling, Lindelof, Young, McTominay, Fred, Lingard, Pogba, Rashford, Martial.
Lindelof will be hoping to get the nod over Harry Maguire and partner Raphael Varane in defence with Lisandro Martinez being suspended for the play-off first leg.
Scott McTominay and Fred, a favoured duo under Solskjaer, will likely be on the bench if Casemiro and Christian Eriksen are fit.
Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial will fancy their chances of starting in Catalonia if they’re both fit and Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard both left in the summer as free agents.
Gone are the days of Ashley Young, Phil Jones and Chris Smalling forming part of our backline against European giants like Barcelona.
Ten Hag will fancy his chances of going to the Nou Camp and taking the game to the La Liga leaders and putting up a far better challenge compared to our last meeting.
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