There has been little time to rest or celebrate their emphatic win over Real Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup final for Barcelona as they return to action at Montjuic at 9pm CEST. Real Betis is present in the city, which suffered a damaging defeat against Real Valladolid last weekend.
Hansi Flick will have to evaluate the fitness of his players, but MD believes that the German coach will not be heavily rotated apart from the forced changes. Inaki Pena comes on for the suspended Wojciech Szczesny, and Ronald Araujo retains his place after replacing Inigo Martinez in the Supercup final. Their only other predicted change for the Copa del Rey Round of 16 is Frenkie de Jong, who could replace Pedri.
Sport believes Barcelona will make more widespread changes. They believe Gerard Martin could line up in the backline for Alejandro Balde, and Eric Garcia could get the nod instead of De Jong. Barcelona left Ansu Fati out of the squad as a healthy scratch, but are also missing Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Martinez, Andreas Christensen and Marc Bernal.
Real Betis also have major injury problems themselves, as Giovani Lo Celso was ruled out earlier this week. He joins Chimy Avila, William Carvalho, Marc Roca and Hector Bellerin on the sidelines. Fran Vieites will remain in goal after the departure of Rui Silva, but after that Manuel Pellegrini's team will more or less choose for themselves.
Isco will be in charge of things, with Vitor Roque making his first return to Barcelona since leaving on loan last summer. Pablo Fornals, Natan, Juanmi and Cedric Bakambu are his main options off the bench.
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