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Barcelona blowing away a 3 goal lead couldn't happen again, could it? Well, it did. After beating Liverpool 3-0 at home Barcelona looked set to qualify for their first Champions League final since 2015 but a brace from Origi and Wijnaldum meant the club from Catalunya relived the Roma disaster again this season, but this time at Anfield.
But Barcelona losing heavily away from home in Champions League is not something new. They have now lost 4-0 to PSG, 3-0 to Juve, 3-0 to Roma and now 4-0 to Liverpool in the last 3 seasons. We look at 3 reasons as to why Barcelona, so dominant in La Liga has struggled so much in the away knockout ties in the Champions League.
#3 Wrong gameplan
When Barcelona faced PSG in the round of 16 in 2016-17, Luis Enrique, the then Barcelona manager used a high midfield line to provide Barcelona with more men in the final attacking third. This left a huge gap between their midfield and defense. PSG duly exploited this space between Barcelona's midfield and defense, with PSG's midfield regularly providing through balls to their attackers and eventually running away as a 4-0 winner.
Against Juventus, Luis Enrique went with a back 3 of Pique, Umtiti, and Mathieu and used Mascherano and Rakitic as wide midfielders. Juventus's Juan Cuadrado and Mario Mandzukic regularly stretched Barcelona's defense which created space in the middle. Dybala would often drop behind Higuain and exploit this space to create chances for his team-mates.
In the 2017-18 campaign before the game against AS Roma, Valverde started 8 of his starting 11 players in a league game against Leganes. As the coach had barely rotated, Barcelona players came into this game totally exhausted. Given that Roma is a physical side, rather than trying to defend and match Roma in terms of physicality Valverde should have started players who could have provided Barcelona pace and helped the team in stretching Roma at the back or hit them on the counter.
Coming into the 2nd leg against Liverpool this season, Barcelona knew that Liverpool would attack from the word go and hence should have gone for someone like Malcolm who would have provided them pace on the counters. Also, the game being played at such a high tempo, Arthur should have started in the midfield as he is very good at controlling the pace of the game and provides control in the midfield but Valverde rather opted for Vidal.
All in all, when it mattered the most, Barcelona got it wrong in terms of tactics and gameplan and thus paid a heavy price for it.
#2 Defensive approach
Valverde knew that the trip to Anfield won't be an easy one and hence getting that away goal was of utmost importance for Barcelona. So rather than setting up an attacking line-up, Valverde went for the same line-up that started a week ago at Camp Nou. He set up a 4 man-midfield and tried to crowd the middle of the park so that Liverpool couldn't provide those through balls to their attackers.
Against Roma last season instead of trying to get that away goal, Valverde thought it was better to sit back and defend. Ultimately Barcelona couldn't match Roma's physicality and ended up losing 3-0. In this game too, Barcelona should have started with a 4-3-3 formation which would have caused trouble for Roma's backline with some pace on the wings.
In Turin, Luis Enrique started with a 3-4-3 lineup that reverted back to 5-3-2 without the ball. The plan was to nullify Juventus's wingers and not let Dybala have any of the ball. But Barcelona's wide midfielders lacked the pace to stop Juventus's wingers and really didn't provide any advantage. Instead, Barcelona should have started Jordi Alba at left-back and with him and Neymar sharing the same wing, Juventus wouldn't have been that brave in the attack.
Against PSG, after being 2-0 down at the half time, Luis Enrique should have brought on an attacking midfielder like Rafinha or Denis and asked the team to play with an attacking mindset. Instead, he asked his defense to play deep and stop PSG from scoring more goals, play long balls to the front three and try to score on the counter. Well, they ended up getting hammered 4-0.
If Barcelona had stayed true their style and played football the way they know, probably, they wouldn't have suffered so much away in Europe.
#1 Not playing with a free mindset
Coming into the 2nd leg against Liverpool, Barcelona had AS Roma back in their mind. Even after leading 3-0 in the tie, Barcelona were not sure whether they would progress to the final or not. Barcelona recently have been struggling under the weight of expectations that they have put themselves under after dominating in the domestic league for almost a decade. The players now feel the pressure to prove themselves in Europe and hence have not been able to express themselves freely on the pitch.
In 2015, when Barcelona went to Allianz Arena after beating Bayern Munich 3-0 in the first leg of the semi-finals, they conceded a goal in the 9th minute itself. Yet, they never doubted themselves and scored 2 goals in the next 20 minutes and progressed to the final. In the final in Berlin, when Morata equalized in the second half for Juventus, Barcelona never looked like conceding more goals. Now, you look at the current team and wonder if they could have played the same way as they did a few years ago and the answer is probably a big "NO".
Look at Real Madrid who have been accused of not playing the best football in Europe, still, have won 3 Champions League back-to-back. The reason behind this is that they play freely and never doubt themselves even under the toughest of circumstances.
De Jong will join Barcelona next season and if rumours from the Dutch media are to be believed de Ligt too is on his way to Barcelona. Also, the club will probably sign 1 or 2 more players in the summer transfer window. But if Barcelona doesn't forget it's past glories and play with a free mindset, even with the new crop of players, another humiliating defeat on the road next season looks inevitable.
