Club Brugge KV (24th, 3pts) vs FC Barcelona (12th, 6pts)*
*Standings at time of writing
Competition/Round: 2025-26 UEFA Champions League, League Phase, Matchday 4
Barcelona Outs & Doubts: Marc-André ter Stegen, Joan Garcia, Gavi, Pedri, Raphinha, Andreas Christensen (out)
Club Brugge Outs & Doubts: Simon Mignolet, Ludovit Reis, Bjorn Meijer (doubt)
Date/Time: Wednesday, November 5, 2025, 9pm CET/WAT (Barcelona & Nigeria), 8pm GMT (UK), 3pm ET, 12pm PT (USA), 1.30am IST (India, Thursday)
Venue: Jan Breydelstadion, Bruges, Belgium
Referee: Anthony Taylor (ENG)
VAR: Stuart Attwell (ENG)
How to watch on TV: TUDN (USA), TNT Sports 4 (UK), SuperSport (Nigeria), SONY TEN 1 (India), Movistar (Spain), others
How to watch online: Paramount+ (USA), discovery+ (UK), Sony LIV (India), Movistar+ (Spain), others
Following a hard-fought win over Elche in La Liga over the weekend, Barcelona return to action for their fourth League Phase match of this season’s Champions League as the Catalans travel to Belgium to face Club Brugge at the Jan Breydelstadion on Wednesday night.
Barça come into this one looking for a third win in four in Europe to begin the League Phase, and have a real chance to finish Matchday 4 inside the Top 8 if they get all three points and other results go their way. The race for the Top 8 promises to be really tight this season with all of the big clubs off to strong starts, so Barça must not drop points in this one.
That doesn’t mean this will be easy, though: there is a tendency to take teams like Brugge in the Champions League for granted because of the lack of name recognition, but you don’t need to watch them too much to realize this is a team that can cause Barça, especially this current version of Barça full of injuries and inconsistent play, a ton of problems.
Brugge are tough, tall, good in the air and on the counter, and have some electric pace on the wings. Their only home game in Europe so far displayed all of those qualities as they destroyed Monaco to pick up their only points of the League Phase, but they deserved better from their trip to Atalanta that ended in a 2-1 loss and had the misfortune of having to play Bayern Munich, who look absolutely unstoppable right now. They lost 4-0 in decisive fashion, but you can almost discard that result because basically anyone is in danger of losing 4-0 to this current Bayern team.
Barça cannot assume this will be comfortable, especially being on the road, and must be prepared for a hostile environment and a solid all-around team who can be just as annoying and threatening as Elche proved to be at the weekend. Anyone expecting an easy time must adjust their expectations now; you can thank me later so you can properly enjoy the three points if Barça manage to get them.
But Barça fans are always arrogant, so they’ll expect a 5-0 against no-name Brugge and be disappointed with whatever happens that falls short of those unrealistic expectations. It’s just life in Barça Land.
Let’s dance.
POSSIBLE LINEUPS
Barcelona (4-2-3-1): Szczesny; Kounde, Cubarsí, Eric, Balde; Casadó, De Jong; Yamal, Fermín, Rashford; Ferran
Club Brugge (4-1-4-1): Jackers; Sabbe, Ordóñez, Mechele, Seys; Stankovic; Forbs, Onyedika, Vanaken, Tzolis; Tresoldi
PREDICTION
It’s REALLY easy to take this one for granted as a fan just because Brugge don’t have big names and lost to Bayern last time out, but this is a team built to give Barça trouble and are always tough to beat at home. This will not be easy at all, but I’m still betting on the away team: 2-1 Barça.
