Football
Sam Marsden, Barcelona correspondent 7y

Unai's Emery past experience facing Barcelona will help PSG - Luis Enrique

Luis Enrique says Unai Emery's knowledge of Barcelona could favour Paris Saint-Germain when the two sides meet in the Champions League round-of-16 this week.

During previous spells in charge of Almeria, Valencia, Spartak Moscow and Sevilla, Emery has faced Barcelona on 23 occasions.

However, while he has only won one of those games -- a 2-1 victory with Sevilla in 2015 -- Luis Enrique says the experience is a factor which could benefit the French champions.

"I can't imagine any manager has played Barca as many times as Unai," the Barca coach said in his pregame news conference on Monday. "He knows to perfection what we could do and that's an added danger."

Emery, who won the last three Europa Leagues with Sevilla, was appointed by the French champions last summer with the aim of improving on PSG's performances in Europe under his predecessor Laurent Blanc.

They've been knocked out of the Champions League in two of the last four seasons by Barca, but Luis Enrique expects a daring performance from the Parisians in the first leg at the Parc des Princes on Tuesday.

"Knowing Unai, I am sure they will come straight at us and try to put pressure on us," he said.

"It will be an attractive game, but we have the same target as always: to keep the ball away from them and to try and create as many chances as possible.

"It will be a daring PSG side, backed by the home support and trying to make things difficult for us."

Barca will be without injured trio Javier Mascherano, Aleix Vidal and Arda Turan for the match, but Luis Enrique says Gerard Pique is fit after missing Saturday's win over Alaves as a precaution.

"Pique's a very competitive player and he never wants to rest, but he did take a knock [against Athletic Bilbao]," he explained.

"We need to protect him, but he's fine for [Tuesday]. We were being cautious [at the weekend] because of the knock he'd taken. We don't want to overload him, but he's ready to play."

With 25 goals in the league and six more in Europe, Edinson Cavani is enjoying his best season since joining PSG from Napoli and will pose a big threat to Barca's backline.

However, Barcelona midfielder Andre Gomes says it would be foolish to focus on just one player.

"They have top quality players; they made some good signings in January," the Portuguese midfielder said.

"Zlatan [Ibrahimovic] has gone, but Cavani is scoring a lot of goals. Their midfield is very strong; they're a really complete team.

"We're playing at their home and it will be a difficult game. But we're ready and looking to win the game. Hopefully we can take a good result into the second leg."

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