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Welcome to another night of electrifying European Cup soccer. Nine matches are planned for tonight, with three British clubs in action. The Blues meet Barça in the standout fixture of the night, while The Magpies visit the French side and City host Leverkusen.

League Table

It's the midway stage of the group stage, meaning the rankings is taking form. Each of the six English clubs are currently in the upper twelve, however there are only two pts between 5th and sixteenth place, thus there's a sense of snakes and ladders about the whole thing. Everything is to play for.

Match Schedule

Here are tonight’s matches, each kicking off at 8:00 PM except where noted:

• Benfica lead Ajax 1-0 (5.45pm)
• Galatasaray 0-0 Union SG (5.45pm)
• Bodo/Glimt v Juventus
• Barcelona take on Chelsea
• Villarreal meet Dortmund
• Man City v Leverkusen
• Marseille v Newcastle
• Qarabag play Napoli
• Slavia Prague v Athletic Bilbao

Lineup Changes

Fofana, Caicedo, Garnacho, Malo Gusto and Estevao join the Blues side. Out go Adarabioyo, Santos, Gittens, Pedro and Liam Delap.

Lamine Yamal starts for Barça; Rashford is on the bench.

Chelsea (possible four-three-three) Sanchez; Reece James, Fofana, Trevoh Chalobah, Marc Cucurella; Gusto, Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez; Estevao, Pedro Neto, Alejandro Garnacho.

Substitutes: Jorgensen, Adarabioyo, Badiashile, Liam Delap, Bynoe-Gittens, Andrey Santos, Joao Pedro, Jorrel Hato, Leo George, Joshua Acheampong, Guiu, Buonanotte.

Barcelona (probable 4-2-3-1): Joan Garcia; Jules Kounde, Ronald Araujo, Pau Cubarsi, Alejandro Balde; Eric Garcia, Frenkie de Jong; Yamal, Fermin Lopez, Ferran Torres; Lewandowski.

Subs: Szczesny, Diego Kochen, Raphinha, Rashford, Christensen, Casado, Gerard, Olmo, Bernal, Dario Fernandez, Roony Bardghji.

Official Slavko Vincic (Slovenian).

Previous Encounters

The sole past encounter between Marseille and Newcastle was the Uefa Cup semifinal of 2003-04, claimed by an rising star from Côte d'Ivoire. Manchester City and Bayer Leverkusen have never met before. Chelsea and Barcelona have some past encounters.

Early Match Updates

Only a single goal in the first half of the early fixtures. Dahl's 6th-minute sizzler has earned Jose Mourinho’s Benfica a one-nil advantage at Ajax.

Newcastle’s Trip to Marseille

Although The Magpies arrived in the French south coming off their confidence-boosting two-one home English top-flight victory against City on Saturday, and having defeated Union SG, the Portuguese side and Bilbao in the Champions League, their sole away win since the start of April came in Brussels at Union Saint-Gilloise.

Not that Eddie Howe was overly keen to talk about the psychological aspect of this travel sickness. “The European Cup is different to domestic games,” said the coach, whose team are 6th in the European table, with nine points from a possible twelve and automatic progression to the last 16 nearly secured. “I am not sure if you can draw parallels between them.”

We have a separate live blog for Chelsea v Barcelona. Scott Murray, the minute-by-minute equivalent of Maradona is handling for that.