The rarified atmosphere around Barcelona which encompasses their often myopic, hysterical media, their downtrodden and traumatised fans, plus a directorate which has spent more time baling water out of the craft than sailing forward over the past few seasons means that defeat to Bayern Munich on Wednesday in the Champions League will tip most of them back into full-on crisis mode despite this season’s excellent opening phase.
This, of course, would be a nonsensical position to adopt.
For context, despite playing at home, Barça are are underdogs considering past results. Their all-time record against Germany’s most powerful and relentless club is, quite simply, atrocious. Including the infamous 8-2 defeat that completely wrecked the Quique Setien regime four years ago (at the hands of current Barça coach Hansi Flick, remember!) the Catalans’ slate against Bayern reads: played 15, won 2, drawn 2, lost 11, scored 16, conceded 37.
This is, by a huge distance, their worst and most humiliating record against any rival in Barcelona’s entire 125-year history. Just to seal the case, Barça’s last four matches against the Bavarians have been straight defeats, no goals scored and 11 conceded.
It’s quite another thing when, like Dani Carvajal‘s obvious and fully deliberate red-card foul vs. Germany cost him with an expulsion and a mandatory suspension from the European Championship semifinal — but almost certainly saved Spain from conceding in added time of extra time (125th minute) while leading 2-1.
Flick will know that if Osasuna — where Barcelona lost their only match this season and conceded copious ball-over-the-top chances — can rip his team’s high-defence line to absolute shreds then Bayern, on their day, can demonstrably do so too.
Vincent Kompany and his technical staff will have looked too at how Alaves — even though beaten 3-0 — might have scored three or four themselves from having got behind Barcelona’s defensive line (even though the Basque team was caught offside countless times).
Flick has already confirmed that Barcelona’s goalkeeper Iñaki Peña will play on Wednesday, and he looks shaky — like Bambi on ice, in my opinion. This is a player extremely short on confidence, especially dealing with crosses in a crowded area and positioning himself far out of his penalty area when Barcelona are high up the pitch. He’s required to be the sweeper-keeper.
The deduction is this: Bayern will definitely be able to wriggle free of Barcelona’s high and mid-press so that they can set runners free in behind the high-defence line. At which point Flick’s defenders will be thinking: “I don’t really back Peña to make too many one-v-one saves in this situation.” And they’ll be tempted to commit fouls which, if badly judged, will lead to red-card situations.
They have to ignore that temptation, trust that their teammates can press better as the game goes forward and trust that Peña can produce a performance as good as his work against Osasuna and Alaves was startlingly bad.
If Flick’s men have any chance of beating Bayern, they simply can’t end up with 10 men for the majority of the match. A situation which is far from unlikely.
Stay tuned, this match will teach us a lot about Spain’s league-leaders ahead of El Clásico vs. Real Madrid on Saturday (Stream LIVE: 3 p.m. ET, ESPN+, U.S. only). And about how tough it’s going to be to qualify for Champions League football in the new year.
