BARÇA v WERDER BREMEN TICKETS: Tuesday, December 5, 2006: Make or break time for Barça

All the talk will stop on Tuesday evening as FC Barcelona look to prevent themselves making an embarrassingly early exit from the competition which they dominated last season.
Nobody dreamt when the draw was made at the end of August that the reigning champions would be struggling to make it out of the group stage, but that is the reality. After taking only one point from their two matches against Chelsea and drawing in Germany against Werder, Frank Rijkaard’s team now find themselves two points behind their visitors for this encounter and sitting in the UEFA Cup qualification spot. The Barca coach announced immediately after defeating Levski Sofia in their last Champions League outing, that he was extremely confident of overcoming Werder, but this will be a true test of the team’s nerve. Now doubt, the Germans will arrive to defend in numbers and look to hit the hosts on the break and that is exactly the approach they should take if they want to earn the precious point that they need to cause a major upset. After a couple of unwelcome defeats, and a slide away from the top of the Bundesliga, Thomas Schaaf’s team earned an encouraging victory against Arminia Bielfeld in the penulimate league outing before this match. More importantly was the huge boost to morale that the win against Chelsea in the last Champions League game.
There was no question over whether the Blues had an agenda going into the game, knowing that if they lost it would cause Barca grief, because Werder were outstanding as they humbled the English champions thanks to a goal from Per Mertesacker. For Barcelona, they will need a performance similar to the one that they produced a year ago when they beat the same opponents 3-1 in Camp Nou. Even then though it was a tough match with a scoreline that, it could be said, flattered the home team. It may be an unexpected end to the group stage, but it is one that will have fans on the edge of their seat to see which of these two attacking teams comes out on top and which goes into the UEFA Cup.