Players of Napoli © Gallo Images
The reigning champions of Italy and Spain meet at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona on Wednesday at 22:00 CAT as Napoli take on Barcelona in the first leg of a heavyweight contest in the Uefa Champions League round of 16. Catch the action live on SuperSport.
In a stadium bearing the name of a player who represented both clubs with distinction, Napoli – who finished as Group C runners-up, eight points behind Barcelona’s great rivals Real Madrid – will attempt to beat the Spanish side for the first time in what is the clubs’ third knockout contest in five seasons.
They will do so with a new man at the helm after Slovakia coach Francesco Calzona replaced Walter Mazzarri just 48 hours before the first leg.
Barcelona are in the round of 16 for the first time in three campaigns and finished first in Group H, edging out Porto on head-to-head record after the teams had finished level on 12 points.
While Napoli progressed beyond the first knockout round for the first time in 2022/23, Barcelona are bidding to reach a first quarterfinal since 2019/20 – their 13th successive last-eight appearance.
MATCH FACTS
have never won a major European match against Barcelona (D2 L2), while they’ve previously faced them in the round of 16 of the Uefa Champions League in 2019-20, losing 4-2 on aggregate.
Barcelona won 4-2 in their last meeting with Napoli, in the play-off round of the 2021-22 Uefa Europa League. This was the joint-most goals a team have scored in a European away game against the Italian side, with Manchester City being the only other team to have netted four (also a 4-2 win, in November 2017).
Barcelona are winless in their last three Uefa Champions League games against Italian opponents (D1 L2), losing as many of those three games as in their previous 19 games against Italian teams (W11 D6 L2).
Napoli manager Walter Mazzarri is unbeaten in his five Uefa Champions League home games (W4 D1), winning each of the last three. This will be just the third match he’s overseen in the knockout stages of the competition, with the previous two coming in the last 16 in 2011-12 (lost 5-4 on aggregate against Chelsea).
Barcelona have only won one of their last 10 away games in the knockout stages of the Uefa Champions League (D4 L5), with that victory coming against Manchester United in April 2019 (1-0). They’ve only scored four goals across these 10 matches, failing to score at all in six of them.
In this season’s Uefa Champions League group stage, Manchester City (44 per cent) were the only side who had a higher per centage of their pressures come in the final third than Barcelona (42 per cent). Indeed, Xavi’s side also ranked fourth for final third pressures per game in the group stage (147), despite them having the third-highest possession average (62 per cent).
Napoli’s 10 goals in the Uefa Champions League this season have been netted by eight different players, while only Manchester City (9) had more different scorers in this season’s group stage.
Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski hasn’t scored in any of his last four Uefa Champions League appearances – only once previously has he had a longer run of games without a goal in the competition, going five without netting between March and May 2018 for Bayern Munich.
Barcelona youngster Lamine Yamal – who has already netted in three different competitions for the club (LaLiga, Copa del Rey, Supercopa) – could become the first 16-year-old to score in the Uefa Champions League.
Ilkay Gündogan made the most passes that broke the opposition’s defensive line (14) in the group stage of this season’s Uefa Champions League. Meanwhile, only Jude Bellingham (6) created more chances from a line-breaking pass than Gündogan (5) in the group stage this term.
