Rubin out to shock Barca – again

Rubin Kazan coach Kurban Berdyev said his side cannot rely on Barcelona resting a host of star players when the two clubs meet on Tuesday.

Barcelona have already qualified for the knockout stages and are free to tinker with their line-up, while Rubin are one point behind second-placed FC Copenhagen and a mathematical chance of progressing.

To do so, Rubin will need to secure the three points at the Camp Nou and hope that Greek champions Panathinaikos can hold or upset Copenhagen in Denmark.

While the notion of Rubin defeating Barca seems improbable, it happened as recently as last season, when the Russian club stunned the Catalan giants 2-1 in Barcelona.

Barca have rested Xavi, Daniel Alves, Pedro Rodríguez and David Villa for Tuesday’s match, but Berdyev acknowledges that Pep Guardiola’s men will still pose a difficult challenge.

“Tactically Barcelona won’t change their style. I don’t think the player changes will affect that,” Berdyev said.

“The players don’t make them strong, because all the players are very good and they prepare well whatever the starting XI is.”

“The whole team and I are proud not to have lost here at the Camp Nou. Barcelona teach us all lessons and we have learned a lot from them.”

“We saw Barcelona versus Real Madrid, of course. Barcelona were at their highest level and wanted to achieve an important result. It’s the first time I have see them play with so much motivation.”

“If we don’t qualify, it’ll be disappointing, but I think we will leave with our heads held high.”

Guardiola acknowledged Barca had already accomplished their goal of qualification, but said his side still wanted to perform well for its supporters.

“We have no goal tomorrow because we’ve already completed our task,” Guardiola said.

“We’ve done the job and qualified and nobody can take that away from us. Out of respect for the public we’ll try to play a good, dynamic football and create as many chances as possible.”

“We were also going to rest (Andres) Iniesta and (Lionel) Messi but as the B team also have an important match this week, we couldn’t take any more players from them.”