It is no secret that Barcelona isn’t the same team as it once was. The huge financial troubles and debt gathered over the years, the scandals with former president Josep Maria Bartomeu, the departure of prolific club players like Neymar, Luis Suarez, and even Lionel Messi, all reflected the team performances in the last 5 years.
Despite some sporadic success in La Liga and Copa del Rey the Catalonian football giants are performing more than poorly in the UEFA Champions League in recent years. It was undoubtedly the big goal for the team this season. But how much of a chance do they have when you take a look at their performances? All the latest football news is at your disposal!
Latest seasons
The sleeping giants haven’t played a final in the UEFA Champions League since the 2014-2015 season when they won against Juventus bringing in the 5th trophy to Camp Nou.
In the next 3 seasons, the team couldn’t make it out of the Quarter-Finals as the games with Atletico Madrid in the 2015-2016 season, Juventus in the 2016-2017 season, and Roma in the 2017-2018 season, all resulted in devastating losses that brought a lot of tears to the fans. Things were finally looking better in the 2018-2019 season when the team had to fight its way to the Semi-Finals with games against Inter Milan, Lyon, and Manchester United, only to be outplayed in the second leg against Liverpool.
The next few seasons the performance of the team has been dropping rapidly – knocked out from the Quarter-Finals from Bayern and the round of 16 by PSG in last season’s fiasco. But will things finally take a turn this season?
Grim predictions
The season started just like any other – with high ambition and hope for UCL glory. Ronald Kuman’s boys started the season with a home game against their biggest nightmare in the latest years in the UEFA Champions League. Bayern demolished Barcelona on Camp Nou yet again. Despite the game being played in front of home crowd, Barcelona looked like an away team in this game – Bayern had more total shots, more shots on target, more possession, more passes, more everything. Barcelona didn’t even have a shot on goal. The 0:3 loss was the least they could get.
The team’s spirit seemed broken after this horrible start of the season and the next 4 games certainly didn’t satisfy the fans of the club – another 3:0 loss against Benfica, two narrow wins against Dynamo Kyiv, and a draw against Benfica.
Now the last game of the group stages is knocking and Barcelona is in dire need of a victory against Bayern otherwise the team will be competing in the Europa League for the rest of the season.
The Bavarian machine is looking sharper than ever and will try to humiliate Barcelona yet again as confirmed by Thomas Muller in one of his latest interviews. A victory over Bayern would certainly compensate for the miserable results this season and the team should feel very proud to achieve that.
