Barcelona have had a torrid few weeks in their recent footballing calendar. They lost to bitter rivals Real Madrid 11 days ago in the season’s first El Clasico by a flattering score line of 3-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Last night, they were humbled by Bayern Munich again in the Champions League. The Camp Nou occupants saw the home team drop to a 3-0 defeat, with the Bavarians hardly breaking a sweat.
To top it off, before kick-off, they already knew that they were relegated to the Europa League for the second year running.
High but unrealistic hopes were placed on the Czech club Viktoria Plzen to beat Italian stalwarts Inter Milan at a noisy San Siro. A 4-0 win to the Nerazzurri was the best the visitors could manage.
Barcelona are 3rd in their group in Europe after 5 matches, accumulating a mere 4 points.
Club legend Xavi Hernandez took over the reins from Ronald Koeman last year, raising hopes of a new dawn, a new era, as they finished the season strongly in 2nd place, but miles behind champions Real Madrid.
A free-spending summer transfer window followed, with the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Jules Kounde & Raphinha among many acquired from an apparent endless pot of gold to bolster their ranks and become world beaters.
This also clearly demonstrated the management’s faith & support in their new manager.
Though their La Liga campaign is going considerably well, in Europe, they faltered at the very first steps.
3 defeats & a chaotic 3-3 draw against Inter were preceded by their only victory against the minnows in their group.
This has not gone down well with the fans, especially some controversial referring decisions going against the Spanish side.
“UEFA is a mafia” chants were heard in Camp Nou during their match vs Bayern.
We have to go back to Barca’s away game against Bayern Munich, where they were due a penalty kick after a foul on Dembele.
Then, in the 0-1 away defeat to Inter Milan, the referee took a contentious decision to not dictate a penalty for Denzel Dumfries’ handball.
Now, questions are raised again after last night’s match against Bayern Munich.
English referee Anthony Taylor first dictated a penalty kick after a foul on Robert Lewandowski by Matthijs De Ligt, but after a VAR analysis, he changed his mind.
The players, the coach, the management, and above all, the fans would be anxious that their run of bad luck & form soon takes a positive turn before it’s too late to salvage anything from 2022-2023.