Barcelona team news ahead of Sunday’s trip to Levante is about as good as Hansi Flick could have hoped for.
Barça held their first session of the week at the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper on Friday with every available senior player on the grass, and the headline sight was Eric Garcia back in a protective mask, ready to face Levante at the Ciutat de Valencia if the manager wants him.
Eric Garcia straps the mask back on
The mask is not new territory for Garcia. Garcia had to reach for one again after taking an accidental blow from his own team-mate Rodri at Mestalla, a collision that left him with a deviated nasal septum and forced him off the pitch quickly.
He has trained with the protection on, and Mundo Deportivo reports he is ready to play on Sunday.
Importantly, his absence against Feyenoord in midweek had nothing to do with the injury. Garcia sat out the Champions League opener because he was serving a suspension carried over from last season, which means Flick gets one of his most flexible defenders back into the pool.
The third captain has been used at right-back as well as in the middle under this coaching staff, and that versatility is exactly why he keeps finding a way into big matchday squads, as we looked at in our piece on Flick’s shuffling of Garcia and Jules Kounde.
Jesse Bisiwu cleared and waiting on a debut
The other returnee on Friday was Jesse Bisiwu.
The defender trained normally with the group, and his paperwork is now fully in order, so he is formally available to Flick.
Bisiwu has yet to make his senior competitive debut for the Blaugrana, though he has already logged minutes for Barça Atlètic, including the Copa Catalunya final against Sabadell, when he was taken off after a heavy knock and left on a stretcher.
That, thankfully, proved to be nothing more than a scare.
Barcelona team news: who is still missing
The treatment room remains quiet by recent standards, but the two long-term absentees are unchanged. Frenkie de Jong is still working back from a medial collateral ligament tear in his right knee suffered during the summer World Cup; sporting director Deco, speaking to RAC1, put the expected lay-off at three to four months. Roony Bardghji, meanwhile, ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and will miss a large chunk of the campaign — he was not registered in Barça’s La Liga squad as a result.
Beyond that pair, Flick has a full complement to choose from, which is a luxury he did not have at this stage of last season.
What it sets up for Sunday
Barça travel to Valencia with the mood around the squad close to giddy. Wednesday’s 5-1 demolition of Feyenoord at the Spotify Camp Nou opened the Champions League league phase in style, and president Joan Laporta spent the Diada telling anyone who asked that this team are candidates for everything, while carefully reminding them the season has only just begun.
The practical question for Flick is how much he rotates. A Sunday fixture after a European night usually means fresh legs somewhere, and having Garcia available again gives him a genuine option at centre-back alongside or in place of Pau Cubarsi and Andreas Christensen, as well as cover on the right. Bisiwu’s availability adds another body to the bench for a squad that Flick and Deco have deliberately built with two competitive elevens in mind.
Nothing has been confirmed about the starting line-up, and Flick rarely tips his hand this early in the week. But after a midweek night that flattered nobody in a Feyenoord shirt, the most encouraging line in this Barcelona team news is the simplest one: everybody who is fit is training, and the mask is the only piece of protective gear anyone needs.
