It may be way too early in the season to start putting teams out of contention if you will. Particularly when it comes to Champions League title contenders. We are just headed into matchday two of the competition. Perhaps though, Barcelona have never had a more important Champions League matchday 2 game than the one they’ll have this Tuesday against Bayern Munich.
Xavi’s Barca team heads to Munich after winning 4 out of their last 5 games in La Liga, and also picking up a win in their Champions League debut. Star signing Robert Lewandowski, whom they poached away from Bayern Munich, has been spectacular in his first few games for the club. It’s looking like the Catalan side could not be arriving with better momentum. That being said, Bayern Munich is the team that spoiled Lionel Messi’s last Champions League run with Barcelona. An embarrassing 8-2 loss in a home game winner take all format that was adopted due to COVID in 2020. Bayern also beat down on Barcelona twice in the group stage of last year’s tournament with identical 3-0 results both home and away. That caused Barca to slip into the Europa League. Should Barcelona be scared to play Bayern Munich?
The Things That Barcelona Has Going For Them
There are a couple of things that Barcelona have going for them that make an embarrassing loss against Bayern Munich rather unlikely. For one, as we’ve mentioned they are truly coming in hot. In most of the other instances when they were beaten badly by Bayern Munich that wasn’t necessarily the case. Even going back to the days that Messi was still on the roster. They had already suffered a bad loss to Bayern before their aforementioned 8-2 Champions League exit in 2020.
It’s not just about Lewandowski, the team, although not in prime Tiki-Taka form by any stretch of the imagination, has found consistent play very much in the Xavi Hernandez style of play. The only problem is that they are like a boxer that wears you out with the jab, and then they just beat down on you. They may not be able to completely overwhelm Bayern like they did with Cadiz over the weekend. Another thing that Barca has going for them is that Bayern hasn’t reached its top form. The team is not rebuilding, but it is rebooting in some sense. They may not be in great shape, particularly for this matchday 2 game.
Avoid An Embarrassing Loss At All Costs
Here’s the dilemma for Xavi. You could make the argument that Bayern is more vulnerable than they’ve ever been. At least in the last maybe 5 or 6 years. We’re not saying they’re a bad team but they are in many ways still trying to find their form, and their style of play even. The team had always had a more traditional number 9 going back to the days of Ivica Olic, through Mario Mandzukic, and of course Lewandowski. Now they are a more vertical team that prides itself in having wing players that stretch the field. This has potentially made them a more vulnerable team. Two uncharacteristic draws in early Bundesliga play against Stuttgart, and Union Berlin reflect that.
Conditions seem perfect for Barcelona to actually have a bit of a revenge game of sorts. On paper they are coming into the game in much better form. That’s just the issue though, this Barca team has not faced this level of competition so far this year. It may be a good idea to play it safe, and avoid embarrassment at all costs. Knowing Xavi though, his Barca team is going to come out and want the ball. The problem is, this Bayern team seems perfectly suited to play counter attacking football against a team like Barca. As they say in boxing styles, make fights! We’ll see what happens on Tuesday.
