UEFA Champions League: 10 Reasons Why FC Barcelona Can Win It From Here
On March 8, Barcelona took on Arsenal in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League Round of 16 tie.
Down 2-1 from the first leg, Barcelona played some great football as they won the match 3-1 to progress to the quarterfinals.
Lionel Messi continued his destruction of Arsenal from last year, scoring two. Xavi scored another beautifully worked goal.
After passing this severe test of character and quality, Barcelona are favorites to lift the trophy.
Here are my 10 reasons why they will win their second Champions League trophy in three years:
Fortress Nou Camp
1 of 10
Under Pep Guardiola, Barcelona have never won an away tie in the UEFA Champions League in the knockout stages and yet they have lost a tie on aggregate only once.
Despite their poor away record, Barcelona are brilliant at home and have won every match they've hosted, except against Chelsea, when they still progressed anyway.
Barcelona are nearly impossible to beat at the Nou Camp, like they showed against Arsenal. Despite having a deficit from the first leg, they managed to win the match comfortably and go through on aggregate.
Barcelona have lost their away match on two occasions only. They're home record makes it extremely difficult for opposition teams to take anything away from the away tie, and the fact that they normally win comfortably at home tips the tie in their favor.
Barcelona have won their home fixture by a margin of two goals on five separate occasions out of the seven matches at the Nou Camp over the last three years under Pep Guardiola.
Lionel Messi
2 of 10
In Lionel Messi, Barcelona have the World’s greatest player and the best player to play football in our generation.
Messi is utterly brilliant and very often single-handedly wins matches for the Blaugrana. His movement, passing and finishing are all a cut above the rest and teams often lose to Barcelona because of Messi more than anything else.
This season alone he has already scored an amazing 45 goals in a mere 40 games. He’s not just scoring goals, either. This season he has already managed 21 assists.
Statistics such as these represent the performance of a phenomenal player—a person who is capable of single-handedly destroying teams, just as he did against Arsenal in the quarterfinal of last year’s tournament.
Several teams have tried to keep Messi quiet and rarely have we seen a team successfully find a way to do it.
David Villa and Pedro
3 of 10
Like mentioned in the previous slide, Lionel Messi is nearly impossible to stop and at times is a one-man wrecking crew.
Yet there are times when even the best can be silenced, as Inter Milan showed last season—a team can successfully keep him quiet.
Last season, Barcelona had Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Pedro to support Messi in attack, but Ibrahimovic struggled and Pedro was still growing. This year, they have David Villa, one of the world’s best players and a far improved Pedro.
Most top teams have one player who guarantees them 20 goals or more in a season, but with Barcelona, they have three players who have already achieved that feat this season.
David Villa has already scored 23 goals and Pedro has scored 20. Having such players also helps to take away the goalscoring burden from Messi’s back.
With these two players in the squad, Guardiola has been able to create several tactical changes and has been able to rotate the players successfully.
The Genius of Pep Guardiola
4 of 10
Pep Guardiola won the treble in his first season in charge of a major football club in 2009 and in the process became the youngest manager to achieve the feat.
This time around he is a more experienced campaigner and the defeat at the hands of Inter last season would have taught him some valuable lessons.
During his stay with Barcelona, Guardiola has proven himself to be a great tactician, with a great eye for talent. He has successfully changed his tactics during the big clashes with great success as he showed against Real Madrid this season during the 5-0 annihilation.
Pep has used the resources at hand with great success and he will be out to show that last year was a mere blip.
Quest for Greatness
5 of 10
This year, all the talk has been about how Barcelona are one of the best teams that world football has ever seen.
Now, there is no doubt that they are one of the best, but are they the best?
That will depend on their performances this year and, more importantly, with La Liga almost sealed, the fate of their UEFA Champions League campaign. They won it in 2008-09, but last year they missed out after losing to Mourinho’s Inter Milan.
If Barcelona want to prove that they are the best team that the world has ever seen. they will have to undoubtedly win the treble once more and that includes triumphing in the Champions League.
This will be playing in the minds of the players and they will want to prove to the world that they are the best the world has ever seen. This passion and desire could prove to be vital and could lead the Catalan giants to glory once more.
Xavi and Iniesta
6 of 10
In Xavi and Iniesta, Barcelona have two of the greatest midfielders of the present era. These two players are the real reason for Messi’s success and they will once again have to be monumental if Barcelona are to lift another UEFA Champions League trophy.
The two of them have been instrumental in Messi’s rise as a player and they create the supply route which enables him to plunder goals past defenses.
The creativity, style, vision and effectiveness of their play is second-to-none and they help to create a vast majority of Barcelona’s goals. These two players complete Barcelona’s style of play and they are the orchestrators of Barcelona’s attacks.
While Xavi tends to drop deep, Iniesta takes up the more attacking role. Xavi is the anchorman of the entire Barcelona side and in the absence of these two legends, Barcelona are a completely different side.
These two players possess plenty of experience that will prove crucial.
Solid Defense
7 of 10
Barcelona have conceded a mere 24 goals in all competitions. This includes the Copa del Rey, UCL and La Liga.
In the heart of the Barcelona defense is Carlos Puyol and Gerard Pique. Although Puyol has been injured in recent weeks and Pique hasn't been at his best, Barcelona’s defense has been solid. They have not been troubled often and they deal with opposition's attacks fairly easily.
One of the reasons for their solid defense is Sergio Busquets. The much maligned defensive midfielder often acts as a third centre back and helps to repel all counter attacks by the opposition.
With Puyol set to return and with Pique bound to improve, Barcelona’s defense is bound to improve as a whole.
In the absence of these two players, Abidal has been monumental and has been fantastic this season. In both the matches against Arsenal he was fantastic and helped minimize the loss of Barcelona’s first choice centre backs.
Style of Play
8 of 10
During the second leg of Arsenal vs. Barcelona, Barcelona had a total of 19 shots while their opponents, Arsenal, had zero. Yes, zero.
Arsenal are the closest thing to a team that can play the same beautiful game that Barcelona play. Yet, on that one night in the Nou Camp, Barcelona out-passed the Gunners and barely gave them a sniff at goal.
So if a team like Arsenal, who are arguably the second best passers of the ball after Barcelona, struggle to even have possession of the ball and play any sort of meaningful football, how will other teams fare?
After all, you can only score when you have the ball and when playing Barcelona, the chances of getting the ball are rare. Even when Barcelona do lose possession, they play a high-pressure game and are immediately after their opponents, trying to win it back.
Barcelona’s style of play, which includes fast and incisive passes, can split even the best of defenses and their patient build up often opens up acres of space across the pitch.
The Barcelona style can also be extremely frustrating for opponents and often leads to poor tackles and reckless play.
Lessons Learnt from the Arsenal Tie
9 of 10
The games against Arsenal might not have been an exact wake-up call, but it did teach the Catalan giants some important lessons.
Throughout the games, Barcelona were shockingly profligate in front of goal and had it not been for Nicklas Bendtner’s pathetic attempt at scoring, they would have most probably been sent packing against a 10-man Arsenal side.
Had Robin van Persie been on the pitch or had they been up against a striker of better quality, they might not have progressed.
Messi, Alves and Afellay all missed great chances to add an unfair gloss to the scoreline but each time they missed their chances.
In the first leg, once again, Arsenal punished them for their profligacy. Pep Guardiola too learnt an important lesson in that match. He substituted Villa for the defensive Keita and that affected the structure of the entire team.
It is better for Barcelona to keep the same attacking team and continue to play their possession football.
Fear in the Mind of the Opponents
10 of 10
Most teams playing Barcelona know very well that Barcelona are the world’s best team and this fear does stay in the minds of the players.
As a result of this fear, teams often give too much space and respect to the Catalans and end up costing themselves the game. Like Arsenal did last season, they gave Barcelona the time and space required for the Blaugrana to flex their muscles and it often costed them dearly. Arsenal learnt from their mistakes this season, but how many teams have this benefit?
Once these teams give Barcelona the foothold in the game, there are very few ways they can come back in the match.
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