Galatasaray vs Barcelona: Raphinha is out, Osimhen is back, and Buruk needs points in Istanbul

The story#

Barcelona arrive in Istanbul without Raphinha. He came back from Brazil duty with a swollen right thigh, and Hansi Flick said on Fri 9 Oct that he "won't be available against Getafe or Galatasaray". "It's not a serious injury, but we have to be careful because he had injuries last season," Flick said. Raphinha is Barcelona's top scorer, with 15 goals in their last ten games, the last three of them a hat-trick at Sevilla on 19 Sep. Lamine Yamal is next with 9.

The first game without him went fine. Barcelona beat Getafe 3–0 at home on Sat 10 Oct, Gabriel Jesus scoring on his first start, for eight league wins out of eight, matching the club record.

Okan Buruk's Galatasaray have the opposite news: their best player is coming back. Victor Osimhen missed about a month with an adductor injury, including the 3–1 defeat at Sporting on matchday 1, and came on in the 77th minute against Kasımpaşa on Fri 9 Oct, setting up the third goal in a 3–1 win. Buruk kept him and İlkay Gündoğan on the bench with this game in mind, Hürriyet reports. Osimhen has 7 goals in Galatasaray's last ten games; nobody else there has more than 2.

Buruk has won four Turkish titles in a row, but this autumn has been uneven, with a 4–0 defeat at Trabzonspor on 19 Sep. After one game of the league phase Galatasaray are 30th of 36, in the places that go out; Barcelona are third after their 5–1 win over Feyenoord. The top eight go straight to the last 16 and ninth to 24th go into the play-offs, so a home defeat would leave Galatasaray with no points from two games. The game turns on Galatasaray's left side, where Ismail Jakobs meets Lamine Yamal.

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Form#

Team news#

Osimhen is the only one of Galatasaray's top three scorers who did not start against Kasımpaşa. Barcelona's Karim Adeyemi, joint third on their list with 4 goals, came on for Yamal in the 77th minute at Sevilla and is in the squad; no injury is reported. Torreira's red card was in the league, so it does not rule him out here.

Who to watch#

The duel to watch: Lamine Yamal against Ismail Jakobs. Yamal started on the right of Barcelona's front three at Sevilla, and with Raphinha out more of the attack runs through him. Jakobs is the left-back he will face. If Rafael Leão stays high to break, Jakobs is left one against one; if Leão drops back to help, Galatasaray lose their best runner on the counter.

Head-to-head#

Numbers that matter#

Our call, explained#

We have Barcelona winning 3–1. Without Raphinha the goals have to come from Yamal, Fermín and the rest of the attack, and the Getafe game says they can: Gabriel Jesus scored on his first start. Barcelona scored three or more in eight of their ten games we hold, and Galatasaray have kept two clean sheets in ten. We expect Galatasaray to score once.

Where this could go wrong. If Osimhen starts and lasts the hour, Galatasaray have a striker Barcelona's back line, without Christensen, will struggle to hold, and a draw comes into play. Galatasaray came from 1–1 to beat Kasımpaşa with ten men. The other way, a Barcelona side that scored seven against Racing could win by more than two if Galatasaray chase the game.

Updates#

Nothing has changed since we published. Next: confirmed line-ups, about an hour before kick-off.

Data note: results, scorers, the table and line-ups from our database (API-Football), read 10 Oct 06:10 UTC, before Barcelona played Getafe; team news and match details from fcbarcelona.com, galatasaray.org, Hürriyet, Goal, EFE, ESPN, Sports Illustrated and UEFA.com.