Barcelona looks for victory against Panathinaikos
BARCELONA (Reuters) – Barcelona players are looking for success in their Champions League quarter-final against Panathinaikos today to help them salvage yet another disappointing season for the Catalan club. A 1-1 draw at home to Las Palmas over the weekend effectively ended the club’s slim hopes of mounting a challenge for the domestic league title. With just six games to go they lie in fifth place on the table, eight points behind leaders Real Madrid. Barcelona has received a major boost ahead of the first leg in Athens with the news of that influential Brazilian forward Rivaldo is back after recovering from an ankle injury that kept him out of his side’s last three matches. Although he has been well below his best this season, the former World Player of the Year is Barca’s all-time top scorer in Europe with 31 goals, and has frequently turned out to be the savior of the Catalan club in key matches. Barcelona’s Italian international defender Francesco Coco insists that it is not too late for the club to bring about a change in its fortunes with a series of good performances in the remaining six weeks of the season. «The winner of the Champions League is going to be the team that plays best in the final part of the season. We have already showed that we can perform well when it comes to the really tough games and we are capable of winning the competition,» Coco said.
