Barcelona: Could they get back to their best?

FC Barcelona are one of the most famous and successful clubs in world football, but by their own hefty standards, the last five years have been anything but.

At the beginning of the 2018/19 season, the club’s greatest ever player and newly appointed club captain, Lionel Messi, made a promise to over 90,000 Barcelona fans in the Camp Nou ahead of a pre-season friendly.

He was referring to Barcelona’s exit from the Champions League in difficult circumstances in April 2018. They had surrendered a 4-1 lead against Roma to be knocked out in the quarter-finals, much earlier than expected. Much like their fierce Spanish rivals Real Madrid, winning La Liga is seen as the bare minimum. The Champions League campaign is truly how success is measured.

Fast forward to May 2019, and Barcelona looked set to make the Champions League final after beating Liverpool 3-0 in the first leg of the semi-final. Messi scored a beautiful free-kick to reach 600 goals scored for Barça, and they looked good on delivering his promise from the beginning of the season. They secured back-to-back La Liga titles a few days later, and the club looked on course to secure a historic double.

But then, the second leg of the semi-final in England was a very different story. Liverpool clawed back the aggregate score to 3-3 after 55 minutes, before scoring a winner late on and snatching the spot in the final away from Barcelona. Messi’s men had collapsed when it mattered again.

Their Champions League exits in consecutive seasons are important because it was the beginning of the end for a squad of players who had achieved so much and been denied so little. They had to try and pick themselves up again, but a year later further turmoil struck. When the world entered a