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Away goal is crucial in Lyon for Barcelona

By Benjamin Barkworth

Barcelona's Lionel Messi celebrates scoring his side's first goal of the game during the UEFA Champions League round of sixteen, first leg match at Stamford Bridge, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday February 20, 2018. See PA story SOCCER Chelsea. Photo credit should read: Nick Potts/PA Wire (Photo by Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
Barcelona's Lionel Messi celebrates scoring his side's first goal of the game during the UEFA Champions League round of sixteen, first leg match at Stamford Bridge, London. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Tuesday February 20, 2018. See PA story SOCCER Chelsea. Photo credit should read: Nick Potts/PA Wire (Photo by Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images) /
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Grabbing an away goal in the first leg will give Barcelona a solid platform to build from.

The Champions League’s away goals rule is often pivotal in deciding matches in the knockout stages so its importance has to be acknowledged in this match as Barcelona can’t afford to underestimate a Lyon side that Manchester City were unable to beat in the group stages. Les Gones were also victorious over PSG in the league so they are definitely a team capable of upping their game against top opponents.

Houssem Aouar admitted that this will be the biggest game of his career so far but this is likely to provide added motivation for a side filled to the brim with talented youngsters. Lyon legend Juninho Pernambucano believes that they have the talent to pull off a shock result, although he also stated they lack leadership and Barcelona can take advantage of that.

They may have finished the group stage unbeaten but they only won one match and conceded 11 goals in just six games. Therefore, Barca’s attacking firepower should be able to create plenty of chances and an ambitious approach from Ernesto Valverde could be rewarded. In Ousmane Dembele, he has the ideal weapon to create havoc in the opposition defence and take some of the pressure off Lionel Messi.

The humiliation against Roma was mainly caused by a pragmatic approach from Valverde that allowed Roma to control proceedings and maintain pressure on the Barcelona back line. They were unable to score an away goal and ultimately paid for it as the Italian side completed a 3-0 comeback.

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Against Chelsea in the previous round, Messi scored a late away goal in the first leg which completely changed the complexion of the tie and forced the Blues to be more ambitious in the second leg which allowed the Catalans to catch them on the counter. Only an extraordinary comeback at Camp Nou stopped Barca from being knocked out by PSG at that stage in the previous season when they didn’t score an away goal in Paris.

Atletico Madrid and Juventus were both able to knock out Barcelona in 2016 and 2017 respectively after denying them an away goal. In the 2014/15 treble-winning season, they scored away goals in each leg of the knockout rounds, so they have to aim for this against Lyon in order to avoid being overly reliant on their home form as well as forcing the opposition to take risks which presents openings for them to exploit.

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Lyon will be without Nabil Fekir due to injury so they will be without their main playmaker and he is key in linking up the different elements of the attack. This is another reason why Barcelona should take some risks in order to make use of their individual quality advantage. Sustained pressure on the Lyon defence should create openings as they have already shown how leaky they are this season.