Barça squad named for El Clásico

Ernesto Valverde has called up his 18 best players for the last big game of the season

The next Barcelona match is upon us! The Blaugrana continue their journey to an unbeaten La Liga title against Real Madrid in what promises to be a great El Clásico at Camp Nou, and Ernesto Valverde has called up 18 players to be in uniform on Sunday night.

This is the full squad:

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Goalkeepers: 1. Marc-André ter Stegen, 13. Jasper Cillessen

Defenders: 2. Nélson Semedo, 3. Gerard Piqué, 18. Jordi Alba, 20. Sergi Roberto, 23. Samuel Umtiti, 25. Thomas Vermaelen

Midfielders: 4. Ivan Rakitic, 5. Sergio Busquets, 6. Denis Suarez, 8. Andrés Iniesta, 14. Philippe Coutinho, 15. Paulinho Bezerra

Forwards: 9. Luis Suárez, 10. Lionel Messi, 11. Ousmane Dembélé, 17. Paco Alcácer

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The squad has remained surprisingly healthy over the last month, which really is rare for Barcelona for the last several seasons. So with no injury problems to deal with, Valverde calls what he thinks are the 18 best players he can have ready to play in El Clásico, which means that Yerry Mina, Lucas Digne, Aleix Vidal and André Gomes can’t get in the squad for this one.

Predicted starting XI (4-4-2):

Ter Stegen; Roberto, Piqué, Umtiti, Alba; Coutinho, Rakitic, Busquets, Iniesta; Messi, Suárez

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The match kicks off at 8.45pm CET (Barcelona), 7.45pm GMT/WAT (UK & Nigeria), 2.45pm EST, 11.45am PST (USA), 12.15am IST (India, next day), and you can join us to follow and comment all the action.

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