FC Barcelona (9th, 13pts) vs FC Copenhagen (26th, 8pts)
Competition/Round: 2025-26 UEFA Champions League, League Phase, Matchday 8
Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Gavi, Pedri, Andreas Christensen, Frenkie de Jong (out)
Copenhagen Outs & Doubts: Magnus Mattsson, Thomas
Delaney (out)
Date/Time: Wednesday, January 28, 2026, 9pm CET/WAT (Barcelona & Nigeria), 8pm GMT (UK), 3pm ET, 12pm PT (USA), 1.30am IST (India, Thursday)
Venue: Camp Nou, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Referee: Benoît Bastien (FRA)
VAR: Bram Van Driessche (BEL)
How to watch on TV: Not Available (USA, UK, India), SuperSport (Nigeria), Movistar (Spain), others
How to watch online: Paramount+ (USA), discovery+ (UK), Sony LIV (India), Movistar+ (Spain), others
Following a comfortable win over Real Oviedo in La Liga at the weekend, Barcelona return to action for the most consequential game of their season so far as the Blaugrana welcome Danish champions FC Copenhagen to Camp Nou for their final match in the league phase of this season’s Champions League on Wednesday night.
All 18 matches in the league phase finale will kick off at the same time in what promises to be a wild night of action, with six of the Top 8 spots still up for grabs and as many as 26 teams still in contention for one of the 16 Playoff spots. This will come down to the wire and it’s impossible to predict how the table will shake out before the madness begins, and it’s a true credit to the revamped Champions League format which has made a once boring and predictable group stage a lot more exciting ahead of the final round of games.
As far as Barça are concerned, they come into the last night of the league phase with a simple task: finish in the Top 8. Despite a turbulent journey in Europe filled with a lot more downs than ups so far, the Catalans pretty much control their own destiny when it comes to clinching an automatic spot in the Round of 16, a scenario that seemed pretty unrealistic before a ton of results went their way in Matchday 7 last week.
They still need one or two results elsewhere to help them and the teams behind them in the standings to not pass them on goal difference, but the simplest, most realistic scenario in front of the Blaugrana is this: win by three or more goals, and you’re in.
Barça will start the night in ninth place, with 13 points and a goal differential of +5. Because PSG and Newcastle (also on 13 points), who are ahead of Barça and inside the Top 8, face each other and at least one of those teams is guaranteed not to win, the Blaugrana will move into the Top 8 (as long as they win) regardless of what happens at the Parc des Princes, and as long as their GD remains superior to Sporting Lisbon, Manchester City and Atlético Madrid, who are the three teams closest to Barça on the goal difference table, they will finish in eighth place at the very least.
The more optimistic (and still realistic) scenario on Wednesday has Barça finishing as high as sixth if the PSG-Newcastle match ends in a draw and Chelsea fail to win away at Napoli, so it’s more than fair to say that if Barça do their job at home and boost their goal differential to +8 or better, it would be virtually impossible for them not to clinch a Top 8 spot.
So as complicated as the scenarios can feel, the reality is Barça have the Top 8 within their grasp and can fully focus on doing their job without worrying too much about what’s going on around them. Barça fans will naturally do some scoreboard watching and will constantly check the updated table every time a goal happens elsewhere, but all the players on the pitch need to do is play intense, attack-minded football, and finally play their best version in Europe to get enough goals to secure all three points and a strong goal differential.
Having to play the biggest game of the season so far without Frenkie de Jong and Pedri is not ideal, but most of the forwards and midfielders available are in good form and capable of picking up the slack in the absence of their world-class teammates, while the defenders must be prepared for a tough test against a Copenhagen team full of talented and dangerous attackers, especially a couple of tall and physically dominant strikers who will test a Barça defense that has been bullied at times in Europe this season.
Win by three or more goals, and you’re in. Win by three or more goals, and you’re in. Win by three or more goals, and you’re in. Win by three or more goals, and you’re in. Win by three or more goals, and you’re in.
That’s the mantra.
Let’s dance.
POSSIBLE LINEUPS
Barcelona (4-3-3): Joan; Kounde, Cubarsí, Martín, Balde; Fermín, Eric, Olmo; Yamal, Lewandowski, Raphinha
Copenhagen (4-4-2): Kotarski; Meling, Pereira, Suzuki, Lopez; Larsson, Madsen, Clem, Achouri; Elyounoussi, Moukoko
PREDICTION
Have I mentioned that if Barça win by three or more goals, they’ll probably finish in the Top 8? Yep, that’s exactly what I think will happen: 4-1 to the home team.
