The Blaugrana kick-off their European campaign with a daunting fixture against Bayern Munich, so what should we expect from the Catalans this season?
Once upon a time, elite attacking trio Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar drove Barcelona to football’s peak, winning the Champions League in 2015.
But in the six years since, the club’s psychological state when it comes to European football has plunged into deep decline.
Throwing away three-goal leads against both Roma and Liverpool in consecutive campaigns was followed by the infamous 8-2 annihilation by Bayern Munich in 2020, meaning it has been a torrid few years for the Catalan giant.
Those defeats played havoc with the team’s confidence and belief, and created turmoil beyond the pitch too.
It is a vicious cycle; perhaps Barca do not collapse against Liverpool if Roma had not shown them that throwing away such a commanding lead was feasible.
Last season, in transition, they were eliminated by Paris Saint-Germain, though the Blaugrana did put up a good fight in the French capital, albeit after being humbled 4-1 at home by Kylian Mbappe and co.
Young shoots, however, started to poke through the blackened soil in the spaces vacated by Luis Suarez, Ivan Rakitic, and Arturo Vidal, among others. This summer, with Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann having departed, along with unwanted players such as Junior Firpo and Miralem Pjanic, it really is a fresh start.
Barcelona’s team is full of young promise, with the soul and spirit of the team in their hands. Frenkie de Jong, Pedri and Memphis Depay are the new leaders. NXGN winner Ansu Fati may join them, when fit after injury, having been brave enough to take the No.10 shirt vacated by Messi.
“There are players who will be more liberated (after Messi),” Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann warned his players last week ahead of their trip to face Barca on Tuesday.
These players are untainted by the capitulations against Roma and Liverpool, while the club’s captains will still be there to offer leadership and guidance. Gerard Pique, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets, three of the four, have taken pay-cuts to help the club out of their financial black hole. The fourth captain, Sergi Roberto, is poised to pen a new deal, also on a reduced wage.
The quartet, all of whom are Catalans (unlike those who have left), remain because they know and love the club.
Koeman, meanwhile, remains at the helm because of his good work with the younger players last season, including Ronald Araujo and Oscar Mingueza, even though president Joan Laporta had doubts about keeping him on. Laporta has called for everyone to pull in the same direction after a tough summer, which will be easier with a good performance against Bayern.
All that means that the Bavarians’ visit to Camp Nou presents an important opportunity for this rejuvenated Barca team to set out a marker. Not that they are capable of winning the competition or any such flight of fancy, but instead that they are capable of competing fearlessly, if not evenly, with Europe’s giants.
Depay has epitomised this, hitting the ground running and taking on the mantle of the club’s main creative influence in the post-Messi era, nonplussed by the Argentine’s legend. Taking risks and scoring goals, the Dutchman has arrived in Catalunya in a state of grace.
Depending on Pique’s fitness, Barcelona may line-up with just three players who started against Bayern in Lisbon little over a year ago, in Marc-Andre ter Stegen, De Jong and Alba. Ter Stegen is ready for a new start himself, hopeful his dip in form is behind him after fixing a niggling knee problem with an operation at the end of last season.
Bayern, who won the competition in 2020, are rightfully favourites for the Champions League opener, even though they are away from home and the 40,000 supporters inside Camp Nou will comprise Barcelona’s biggest attendance this season to date.
If the 8-2 heralded the end of Barca’s last cycle, this game comes too early into the next one for the new generation to be expected to triumph. But playing without terror and posing Nagelsmann’s side problems will set the team up nicely for a hectic autumn schedule.
Bayern are one of the competition’s four best sides, along with reigning champions Chelsea, last season's runners-up Manchester City and the star-studded PSG, but can be got at.
At the other end, whether Barcelona’s underwhelming defence can cope with an effervescent Bayern; Robert Lewandowski, Jamal Musiala, Leroy Sane, Serge Gnabry and so on, is another story.
But at least it is a story that is theirs to write from scratch.
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