This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…
The Champions League is something every big team in Europe aspires to win.
In many ways, it represents the best that club football has to offer and for that exact reason, it wouldn’t really be a stretch to state that Barcelona desperately want to get their hands on the trophy once again.
Last time that happened was in 2014/15 when the team was under Luis Enrique and ever since that moment, they’ve been extremely underwhelming in Europe.
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Of course, by now everyone knows about their hiccups in Turin, Rome and Liverpool respectively as the Catalans have strung together quite an impressive series of humiliating losses.
And even though it was far from a real disaster, their latest Champions League clash was underwhelming as well, to say the least.
Barcelona travelled away to Slavia Prague and after a night filled with blood, sweat and tears, they somehow snatched away all three points with a narrow 2-1 victory.
But it was all but comfortable as Marc-Andre ter Stegen had to put a heroic display to keep the hosts away from their net and strikes from Lionel Messi and a lucky own goal sealed the deal.
Watch Lionel Messi and Gareth Bale answer the internet’s weirdest questions in the video below…
Ter Stegen himself spoke to Movistar Plus (via Goal) after the game and was clearly upset and even stated that they have a lot to discuss after such a horrible performance.
Another star that wasn’t happy was Frenkie de Jong, who lauded their victory as “lucky”.
And despite both of them being spot on with their assessments, this game could still be a blessing in disguise for the Blaugrana.
After all, it seems they are all aware of the problem and are willing to work on finding the solution as soon as possible. Besides, it’s better for these kinds of games to happen now, in the group stages, than later on when the Catalans can’t really afford another hiccup along the way.
By all standards, the squad is still experiencing big issues and it will be up to Valverde to try and find the necessary solution in the near future.
But the clash against Slavia Prague, no matter how uncomfortable or even embarrassing it was, can serve the purpose of being a wake-up call of sorts, an alarm bell ringing in their ears and signalling that something has to change.
Of course, we’ll have to wait and see if Barcelona get the message and patch up the holes in time.
If they don’t, we all know what could be coming in those knockout stages.
