🔗 Share this article

Welcome to a fresh evening of exciting European Cup soccer. Nine matches are planned for this evening, with three British clubs in action. The Blues face Barça in the standout fixture of the night, whilst Newcastle travel to Marseille and City host Bayer Leverkusen.

Group Rankings

We're at the midway stage of the league stage, meaning the standings is starting to take shape. Each of the six English clubs are currently in the upper twelve, but there are only two pts between fifth and 16th place, thus there's a sense of uncertainty about the whole thing. All remains open.

Match Schedule

These are tonight’s fixtures, each kicking off at 8:00 PM except where noted:

• Ajax 0-1 Benfica (5.45pm)
• Galatasaray 0-0 Union SG (17:45)
• Bodo/Glimt v Juventus
• Chelsea v Barcelona
• Dortmund v Villarreal
• Man City v Leverkusen
• Newcastle travel to Marseille
• Qarabag play Napoli
• Slavia Prague v Athletic Bilbao

Squad Updates

Fofana, Caicedo, Garnacho, Malo Gusto and Estevao are included in the Chelsea team. Dropped are Adarabioyo, Andrey Santos, Gittens, Joao Pedro and Liam Delap.

Lamine Yamal starts for Barça; Marcus Rashford is on the bench.

Chelsea (possible 4-3-3) Robert Sanchez; Reece James, Wesley Fofana, Chalobah, Cucurella; Gusto, Caicedo, Enzo; Estevao, Neto, Garnacho.

Substitutes: Jorgensen, Tosin Adarabioyo, Benoit Badiashile, Delap, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Andrey Santos, Joao Pedro, Jorrel Hato, George, Joshua Acheampong, Guiu, Facundo Buonanotte.

Barcelona (probable 4-2-3-1): Garcia; Jules Kounde, Araujo, Pau Cubarsi, Balde; Eric Garcia, Frenkie de Jong; Lamine Yamal, Fermin Lopez, Ferran Torres; Lewandowski.

Subs: Szczesny, Diego Kochen, Raphinha, Rashford, Christensen, Casado, Gerard, Olmo, Bernal, Dario Fernandez, Roony Bardghji.

Referee Vincic (Slovenia).

Past Meetings

The only previous meeting involving Newcastle and Marseille was the Europa League semi-final of 2003-04, claimed by an emerging superstar from Côte d'Ivoire. Bayer Leverkusen and Manchester City have never met before. Barcelona and Chelsea have a notable history.

Early Match Updates

Just one goal during the opening period of the two early games. Samuel Dahl's 6th-minute sizzler has given Benfica under Mourinho a one-nil advantage at the Dutch side.

Newcastle’s Trip to Marseille

Although The Magpies arrived in the French south fresh from their confidence-boosting 2-1 home English top-flight win against Manchester City on Saturday, and having beaten Union SG, Benfica and Bilbao in the Champions League, their only away victory since the start of April came in Brussels at Union SG.

It's not that Eddie Howe was overly keen to talk about the mental side of this away form issue. “The European Cup is different to domestic games,” said the manager, whose side are sixth in the Champions League standings, with 9 pts from a available 12 and direct qualification to the last 16 nearly secured. “I don’t know if you can draw parallels between them.”

We have a separate live blog for Barcelona vs Chelsea. Scott Murray, the minute-by-minute version of Maradona is handling for that.