Facts ✅. All our Champions League era wins came with Messi.
In our first ever European Cup/CL win, under Cruyff, 1992. We still struggled. The first round, we lost away to Rostock. The second round we lost away again to Kaiserslautern. In that game (I made a video about it months back), we were lucky and almost crashed out. We won the first leg at Camp Nou 2-0. But the second leg away they came back and were leading 3-2 on agg. It was a lucky header in the last minute by Bakero that saved us, we lost 3-1 but qualified on away goals.
We then proceeded to the group stage, won all 3 home games, but drew away to Benfica, lost away to Prague. Only won away vs Kiev. In the final we needed an extra time free kick bombazo from Koeman to win it.
Barça play beautiful, pure, systemic football, but its philosophy is not built to dominate in the UCL. We did not build a strong enough historical pedigree in the early days of the competition, I made a video on this before. It affects us till this day. We literally qualified only 4 times in the first 35+ editions.
The hostile atmosphere, especially in KO and away games, requires more than just football. It requires grit, pragmatism, luck, dirtiness, mentality, athleticism etc.. Barça usually do not know how to merge all of these. We have always struggled to play when the situation doesn’t make us in control of the game. When the situation isn’t purely about playing football. We are average when the ball is not with us. Hence, in big games, when the opposition will have a similar amount of breaks, we bend. Or in away games, when the atmosphere brings down our physical and mental level, we break. It’s not a managerial problem, it’s a philosophical one. It’s always been there.
Pep dominated because he starved the opposition of the ball. He had the players to do it. Was a genius. Maximised the strength of the philosophy. And then, had Messi. He revolutionised a philosophy that teams were not prepared to handle. But even he suffered the away game debacle. In his sextuple winning season we didn’t win a single away KO game. In 09/10 the same thing. Pep didn’t win a single away KO CL game in his first two “dominant” seasons. In our best season, 10/11, Arsenal beat us at the Emirates. Real Madrid in the semis, was Pep’s only away win vs a big team in his Barcelona CL career. And that came through Messi genius after a red card. And maybe Milan in his final season after their red card too, if we consider Milan a big team then.
Barcelona have a philosophical problem. It’s institutional. We need to be EXTRAORDINARY with our football to win the CL. It’s not a coincidence why all our 5 titles came alongside a dominant La Liga season. I know this, it’s why I am not CL obsessed. We can always compete for it. We will always compete, but it is not a birthright.
Cruyff’s win in 92 is the only one we didn’t have a very DOMINANT La Liga season, still won. One could say we won that CL by luck and fluke. No traditionally “big CL” team qualified that year, coincidentally. No Real Madrid, no Liverpool, no Bayern, no Milan, no Ajax, no Inter. Benfica were there but weakened. So many things need to fall in place for Barça to win the UCL.
We need to maximize our home results, very importantly. The season after 92, in 92/93 we crashed out of the 2nd round because we lost the 2nd leg at Camp Nou. We failed to beat Kiev away. Even in the first round we failed to beat Viking away. In 93/94, we got to the final. But in the 1st round we needed a remontada 4-1 win after losing first leg away 3-1 to Kiev. We won 1/3 away games in the group stage and were lucky the semis was a one-off home game. We lost the final 4-0 vs Milan.
There is a reason I always want the 2nd leg at home in the KO. Most teams struggle away, but it’s worse for Barça. I still believe we can compete. People just need to realise that it’s not as easy at they think. Our “football first” philosophy is awesome, but a huge constraint in the CL.