The one who can restore pride to Barcelona in the Champions League, ironically, is one of the factors that has sunk them into the mud of disappointment and embarrassment - Hansi Flick.
In the early morning of October 24 (Vietnam time), Barcelona will play the third match of the league stage in the UEFA Champions League 2024-2025, when they host Bayern Munich at home. Before Bayern, Barcelona had good memories and also pain.
More specifically, it can be distinguished between beautiful and painful stages as 2 periods with and without the complete trio of Xavi Hernandez - Andres Iniesta - Lionel Messi. Accordingly, in 2009 and 2015, the Catalan team defeated the German team on their journey to the Champions League championship - Messi scored 4 goals in 4 matches.
But 2015 was also the last time the continental glory came to Barca, considering this season. After Xavi and Iniesta parted ways with Barca, even though Messi still has Luis Suarez and Neymar sharing the attack, they are still gradually falling into a crisis period in the European playground.
The culmination of that crisis was the horror that Bayern brought with a score of 8-2 in the quarter-finals of the Champions League 2019-20 season.
That is not the total score but the only match, in the only season interrupted by COVID-19, which forced them to return to the knockout round and play on neutral ground until August 2020.
If there is any consolation for Cule, that defeat took place in Lisbon ( portugal), not Barcelona or Munich - 2 locations that could increase the humiliation.
Since then, Barca and Bayern have met twice more in the Champions League, with all 4 matches having wins for the German team. Barca have failed to score any goals and have conceded 11.
As time passed, the pain of the name 2-8 gradually passed away, but every time they met Bayern, that story was mentioned as a bleeding wound that could not be cured.
This year, they meet again, in another format of the Champions League. Of course, Barca wants revenge, wants to collect debt, wants to erase the "devil tattoo" marked by Bayern, even though this is the league stage - instead of the group stage.
Can the Spanish representative do it? Xavi left and returned to the coaching chair but was not really satisfied. Gerard Pique, Iniesta have retired, Suarez, Sergio Busquest, Jordi Alba have followed Messi to Inter Miami, Neymar to Saudi Arabia, Marc-Andre ter Stegen is seriously injured...
Who does Barca rely on? Interestingly, the one who can do that is the Bayern member who beat them 8-2 - coach Hansi Flick and striker Robert Lewandowski.
The Polish striker left Bayern and joined Barca in 2022. At this point, Lewandowski is 36 years old but is still a role model for the young strikers of the Spanish team to learn from.
He scored 73 goals in 107 appearances for Barca in all competitions, with 14 goals in 12 games this season alone.
And if Lewandowski is not enough - he met Barca again in 2022 but could not score, the appearance of Flick on the coaching bench could be a support for change.
The current Barca, under Flick's hands, has become more resilient and solid. Their young players are much more mature and although they have to change their style - pressing more, their endurance is still very good.
Barcelona is leading La Liga with 27 points after 10 rounds and scored 33 goals. Standing in front of them is Bayern, who are also leading the Bundesliga after 7 rounds (17 points), scoring 24 goals and conceding only 7.
