Barcelona’s 3-0 loss away at Juventus on Wednesday night served as a rude awakening for the Catalan giants.
After losing 2-0 to Malaga last weekend, Barcelona went on to succumb to an embarrassing defeat in Turin.
Messi Neymar and Suarez were unable to find a way past Juventus’ defence, and as we all know, when the threat of the MSN trio gets neutralised, so does the threat of Barcelona as a team.
Having had to stage the biggest comeback in the history of the Champions League just to make it into the competition’s Quarter-finals, Barca now face the task of replicating that feat when they welcome Juventus to the Nou Camp next week.
Ruling Barcelona out of the tie at this stage, though, would be a big mistake – why? Well, simply because they’re Barcelona – a team which functions on two major things; skill and belief. When the former fails, the latter pulls through as seen when Barca did the seemingly impossible at home to Paris Saint-Germain.
Careful tactical planning, training and whatnot went into Barca’s preparation for their second-leg game against PSG, but all of that went out the window the moment Cavani scored to seemingly erase the possibility of a comeback occurring at the Nou Camp last month.
Cavani’s goal caused Barca to operate solely on belief, and they duly did, thus resulting in them winning the tie and going through to the next round.
Despite the fact that Juventus may pose a different threat due to their strong defence, Barca remains highly capable of defeating any team on home soil.
The Nou Camp is somewhat of a fortress – it’s intimidating for visiting clubs once the fans get start to get behind the Blaugrana.
The players will be keen on rallying the crowd from the onset in a bid to create an untenable footballing atmosphere for Juventus.
However unlikely it may appear, Luis Enrique’s side could yet pull off another epic comeback on the 19th of March.
Barcelona Need a Permanent Solution
This season has proven to be Barcelona’s most difficult in recent years, and the players within their ranks constitute a significant part of the problem.
Regardless of whether Barca manages to make it into the Champions League semi-finals somehow, the club needs to offload the likes of Andre Gomes, Paco Alcacer, Jeremy Mathieu, and Arda Turan as they evidently don’t have what it takes to play for a team of Barcelona’s ilk.
They’ve let the team down on a number of occasions this season, even as backup players, thus, Barca need to offload them and utilise the summer transfer window to full effect in a bid to ensure smooth domestic and European campaigns next season.
