Barcelona have been knocked out of the 2022-23 UEFA champions league at the group stage, after they failed to beat Bayern Munich in Matchday 5, suffering an embarrassing 3-0 defeat.
It is the second year running that Barcelona have failed to make it out of their group, and they will drop into the Europa League Round of 32 once again but this is not the only failure that the Spanish team has suffered in recent years: in the La Liga, Barcelona have not finished at the top since the 2018-19 season, over 4 years ago.
Barcelona’s main troubles have come on the European stage. As you can see below, Barcelona have failed to pass through to the knockout stages for the champions league, both the current and previous seasons. Last season, Barca suffered a humiliating defeat to Bayern Munich, as well as a shocking 3-0 thrashing at Benfica. As 3rd place in the champions league groups are thrown into the Europa league, Barcelona pulled off aggregate wins against Galatasary and Napoli, before losing to the eventual winners, Eintracht Frankfurt.
Barcelona have performed even worse this season, with 4 points from a possible 15 so far; their only win came against Viktoria Plzen. The Czechian side, who are top of the 1st division in Czechia, are Barca’s final opponent in this year’s UCL. Even if they beat Plzen and Inter lose to Bayern, Barca will be 3 points behind.
The Catalan club’s success in Europe hasn’t only declined in the past year however. In the 20/21 season, Barcelona lost out in the Round of 16 to PSG, suffering a heavy 5-2 loss on aggregate. The last Champions League trophy that this massive club has lifted was back in 2015, when the Blaugranes beat Juventus 3-1. Since then, sadly, their placings have fallen off, with 3 consecutive quarter-final finishes between 2015 and 2018, and obviously, the even worse finishes recently. A club of it’s prestige, and fanbase of it’s size, deserves better results in the world’s biggest club competition. They have won 5 Champions league trophies overall, with the first coming in ’92, and more in ’06, ’09, ’11 and ’15.
The success hasn’t only faltered in the Champions League however. Barca have not felt the glory of winning the Spanish league since the 2018-19 season under Ernesto Valverde. In the last 4 seasons since then, they have come runner-up to their biggest rivals, Real Madrid, 3 times, and came 3rd to Real and Atletico Madrid, who were champions. There was hope last season, in March, when Barcelona destroyed their rivals Real 4-0 in El Clasico; unfortunately, it wasn’t enough and as you can see in the 2021-22 table, Barca still lost out by a comfortable margin to Real in the end. Although the famous club haven’t had any terrible finishes, their fans expect much more from the team and the managers.
This season is looking better in the league for Barca, as you can see in the 2022-23 table, but they have already suffered another El Clásico defeat, this time 3-1 to Madrid.
On the more positive side of things, Barca do have some promising upcoming talents from their academy, with prospects such as Pedri and Gavi, who have both won the ‘Golden Boy’ award, for most impressive young footballer, for the last 2 years respectively. Nevertheless, the players which they have signed over the last 5 years, and the sum spent on them, have nowhere near performed for their fees. Since the summer of 2017, in fact, Barcelona have spent more than £900,000,000 on signings. The 3 most expensive ones being:
- Antoine Griezmann, from Atletico, in 2019, for €120,000,000
- Philipe Coutinho, from Liverpool, in 2018, for €135,000,000
- Ousmane Dembele, from Borussia Dortmund, in 2017, for €140,000,000
All three of these signings have performed badly, and inconsistently, in the time that they have spent at the club. Griezmann scored 32 goals in just over 100 games at the club; Coutinho, after a year at the club, was loaned off to Bayern, where he scored in an 8-2 thrashing of his parent club with the German side! After a year on loan, he returned to Barca, where he played irregularly and when he did, he rarely performed well. Dembele has had a plethora of injuries which have damaged his play time. In the 168 games he has played, he’s managed 36 goals and 41 assists; a G/A to game ratio of 0.46, which is not what one would expect from a €140 million player.
We don’t know what the future holds for Barcelona under Xavi, but it could take a turn for the better. Although pathetic performances have hit them in the European stage, the La Liga form is promising, having won 5 of their last 6. Barca’s next two fixtures in Spain are against Almeria and Osasuna, before the Qatar World Cup. Hopefully, Xavi can lead them to 6 points from 6 available, and they can go onto the rest of the season challenging the Madrid giants.
By Tom Hargreaves
The 1509 