At 3:00 a.m. Beijing time on April 8, a match in the first leg of the Europa League quarterfinals began to compete, and Barca challenged Eintracht Frankfurt. Barca's record this season has been poor due to the loss of stars, and they are 12 points behind Real Madrid in the league, and the hope of winning the title is extremely slim. For Barca, there is basically only one Europa League title to compete for. After carrying out targeted reinforcements, Barca gradually got on track under the leadership of Xavi and won many games in succession. This time in the Europa League, Barca face Eintracht Frankfurt, who is 9th in the Bundesliga. Against a team of this level, Barca's goal is to go all out to win, but unfortunately, Barca only got one draw.
Harvey was out of 433 formations for the game. Ter Stegen served as the starting goalkeeper. Alba, Garcia, Pique and Araujo partner for 4 defenders. Garvey, Busquets and Pedri form a midfielder of 3. The attacking trident combination of Ferran Torres, Aubameyang and Traoré joined forces. Dembele, Frankie De Jong, Nico and Lenglet sat on the bench.
Shortly after the start of the match, Ferran Torres' long-range shot was extremely threatening, but was saved by the goalkeeper, which was also Barca's best chance in the first half. Although Barça had the advantage of possession over time, once the Eintracht Frankfurt players got the ball, they were always able to create good opportunities to make Barca stand out in front of goal. The referee had awarded Eintracht Frankfurt a penalty, but after watching the replay, the penalty was cancelled, allowing Barca to escape the disaster. But that also didn't hide Barca's poor performance in the first half. Neither side scored at halftime. Barca had 69% possession in the first half, but only a pitiful 2 shots on goal, 1 shot on target, failed to score. Eintracht Frankfurt had eight shots on goal in the first half, three on target, and failed to score.
Shortly after the start of the second half, Knauf exploded into an inexplicable world wave to help Eintracht Frankfurt take the lead. The goal was a reward for Eintracht Frankfurt's sharp attack. Lindström then almost extended the score, but unfortunately the shot was slightly offside. Behind, Xavi had to try to change the situation with a substitution, and de Jong, who came off the bench, assisted Ferran Torres to equalize. Tutta was sent off with two yellows and one red, giving Barca a numerical advantage in the last ten minutes. However, Barca did not make the most of this advantage and failed to score another goal. The final score was set at 1-1! For the first time since the 1995/96 season, Barca have drawn three consecutive European first legs, and Xavi set an embarrassing record of 26 years.
In the post-match whoscored rating, Knauf scored a game-high 8.1 points, scoring 1 goal on 2 shots, 3 interceptions, 5 steals, 2 clearances, and performed remarkably well on both ends of the board. Barca's highest scorer was Ferran Torres, who scored 7.6 points. Ferran Torres scored 1 goal on 3 shots and 3 successful passes to deliver 1 key pass. Aubameyang was a bit depressed, he only had 1 shot on goal, did not shoot on target, and only scored 6.1 points. Traoré is really a superhuman, he has succeeded in 8 times, but the handling after passing is not very good.