Javier Mascherano’s thigh injury comes at a disastrous moment

Barcelona has recently sustained a shocking 0-4 defeat against Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of the Champions League 16 tie and now the Spanish club has to perform a miracle in order to reach the quarter-finals of the European competition.


No team has ever managed to come back from a 4 goal deficit in order to make it out of the knockout rounds of the Champions League but this is something that Barcelona will have to do if they want to make it into the next rounds of the elite tournament.

Fortunately for Luis Enrique, he will probably be able to utilize the services of Javier Mascherano who was missing out from this 1rst leg due to a thigh injury. Since the 2nd leg is scheduled to be played in 3 weeks’ time from now, on March 8, this gives the Argentinean defender enough time to fully recover.

Javier Mascherano picked up this injury back on February 7 when Barcelona was facing off with Athletic Madrid in the Copa del Rey. The former Liverpool defender entered the pitch in the 2nd half and even though he sustained the injury in the actual match, Mascherano was able to stay in the entirety of the game.

It was later revealed after tests that the 32 year old defender could miss Barcelona’s Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain and indeed he was not featured in the match which might be one of the reasons of why the Spanish club conceded so many goals as Luis Enrique had to make a defensive backline that was clearly not prepared for Angel Di Maria and company.

Whether or not Barcelona are able to make a miraculous comeback is something that remains to be seen but at least Mascherano should be back into the pitch as his physical results showed that his thigh injury was not very serious and the Argentinean player is only expected to miss around 2 weeks of playing time.