Barcelona v Napoli live stream, BT Sport, Thursday 17 February, 5.45pm GMT
Barcelona will be looking to establish a first-leg lead when they face Napoli in the Europa League round of 16 on Thursday.
Europe’s secondary competition has undergone something of a revamp this term. Rather than a round of 32, the upcoming set of ties form part of a preliminary knockout round. Sixteen teams – including Barcelona and Napoli – will battle it out for eight places in the round of 16, where they will be joined by the eight group winners from before Christmas. The preliminary knockout round is made up of third-place finishers from the Champions League group phase and group runners-up from the Europa League.
For the first time since 2003/04, Barcelona are not participating in the knockout phase of the Champions League this season. The Blaugrana could only manage a third-place finish in their group, below Bayern Munich and Benfica. Xavi Hernandez is starting to have an impact as Barcelona manager, though, and the mood around the Camp Nou is more optimistic now than it was when they were knocked out of the Champions League in December.
Napoli finished second in their Europa League group and were then handed a nightmare tie for this preliminary knockout round. Luciano Spalletti’s side should not be underestimated, though. There is enough quality within the Napoli squad to give any team in Europe a game on their day, and they head into Thursday’s encounter on the back of a six-match unbeaten run in Serie A.
Barcelona will be unable to call upon the services of Ansu Fati, Ronald Araujo, Sergi Roberto, Samuel Umtiti and Memphis Depay for the visit of Napoli.
Napoli have Andre Zambo Anguissa and Kalidou Koulibaly back from the Africa Cup of Nations, where the latter was part of Senegal’s triumphant team. Axel Tuanzebe is out injured, but Hirving Lozano could be passed fit to feature in some capacity.
Kick-off is at 5.45pm GMT and the game is being shown live on BT Sport ESPN in the UK.
Use a VPN to watch a Barcelona v Napoli live stream from outside your country
If you’re on holiday or just simply out of the country, your domestic on-demand services won’t work – the broadcaster knows exactly where you are from your IP address. Your access to the game will be automatically blocked, which is annoying if you’ve paid a subscription fee and don't want to use an illegal stream that decides to buffer at the worst possible moment. And that's where we recommend ExpressVPN (more on which below).
All you need to do is get a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to get beyond such aggravations (assuming it complies with your broadcaster’s T&Cs). A VPN creates a private connection between your device and the internet, meaning suppliers can’t work out where you are and what you’re doing. The info going to and from is entirely encrypted.
There are plenty of options out there, including:
