The peculiar atmosphere surrounding Barcelona, ​​which includes the often short-sighted, hysterical media, their oppressed and traumatized fans, plus a directorate that has spent more time squeezing water than sailing forward in recent seasons, means that the defeat against Bayern Munich on Wednesday in the Champions League will find most of them in full crisis mode again, despite the excellent opening phase of this season.

This would of course be a nonsensical position.

For context, despite playing at home, Barça are underdogs if you look at past results. Their all-time record against Germany’s most powerful and ruthless club is simply atrocious. Including the infamous 8-2 defeat that completely destroyed the Quique Setien regime four years ago (at the hands of current Barça coach Hansi Flick, remember!), the Catalans’ list against Bayern is: 15 played, 2 won, Drawn 2, lost 11. , scored 16, conceded 37.

This is by far their worst and most humiliating record against any rival in Barcelona’s entire 125-year history. To wrap things up, Barça’s last four games against the Bavarians have been outright defeats, with no goals scored and 11 goals conceded.

If this series continues on Wednesday, Barcelona would sit with three points out of a possible nine and, even with five games to go, Red Star Belgrade away; Brest, home; Borussia Dortmund, away; Benfica, gone; Atalanta, home — Flick’s team would be in a precarious position.

After the second matchday, Opta ranked Barcelona as the most likely 11th player, meaning no automatic qualification for the knockout rounds (only the top eight) and a play-off draw early next year. But they would be seeded, which would give them home advantage for the deciding match in that tie. If you lose at home to Bayern, that estimate will change quite negatively. They currently sit 16th in the Champions League, thanks to goals scored, and it is conceivable that a defeat would temporarily push them into the elimination zone.

Any team finishing 17th to 24th in this new format will play the decisive second leg of the knockout round away from home – a disadvantage and a prospect to strike horror in the hearts of Barcelona’s leaders. She literal We cannot afford not to reach at least the quarter-finals – a financial catastrophe.

But let’s not get it at way ahead of ourselves, because there’s a surefire first step Barcelona can take to challenge for a draw or (unlikely) beat the Bundesliga leaders: stop making mindless decisions.

Two of their last three Champions League games have ended in terrible, damaging defeats, in games they could and should have won, having sent a player off each time. Sent away for instinctive but crazy decisions.

An example of this was when Ronald Araújo (where Barcelona led PSG 4-2 in last season’s quarter-final) brought down Bradley Barcola after getting away from him. The other was when Eric García received a misjudged pass from Marc-André ter Stegen, was robbed of the ball and pulled down Monaco’s Takumi Minamino almost instinctively. Another red card.

Neither decision was crystal clear and both went against Barcelona, ​​but both were completely inevitable in a number of ways. If they fall into the same trap against Bayern Munich this week, they won’t just lose, they’ll be humiliated.

In any case, Flick has his new team playing with an even more daring, advanced and higher defensive line than the home-bred Cruijff disciple Xavi Hernandez. It’s remarkable to see. When this version of Barcelona feels able to do so, it literally defends on the halfway line. The ebb and flow of matches means that the average distance from their defense to their goal line is 51 meters – a huge, vast gap of green grass between the goalkeeper and his defending teammates, compared to 99% of other teams. The pitch they play on against Bayern is 105 meters long, indicating that Flick’s team will try to defend not far from the halfway line.

It is a tactic intended to achieve several things. First, all action is focused on the opposition’s ability to build from the back. This means that Barcelona’s pressing and intimidating moves not only start high up the pitch, but they can also gather a lot of bodies to crowd the zone where the opponent really doesn’t want to lose possession.

play

How Hansi Flick revived Robert Lewandowski at Barcelona

Alejandro Moreno and Steve Nicol discuss Robert Lewandowski’s form after Barcelona’s 5-1 win over Sevilla.

It is a line of defense, which also means that if Barcelona win the ball back when an opponent’s breakaway breaks out, the first attacking pass is on or beyond the halfway line – creating an immediate danger of a goal pass being created for the team from Flick.

Finally, and this must be kept in mind in the Bayern test: if your rival sees the vast space behind the defensive line and wants to burst/counter-attack into it, then he must have the composure and accuracy to distribute the ball. Well, and it is imperative that they have attacking players, not necessarily the centre-forward, who can beat Barcelona’s retreating defenders.

In the case of PSG they did. Barcola benefited from poor distribution by Araújo, as Luis Enrique’s plan on how and when to press the Uruguayan (selectively, so they could force him into poorly chosen passes) succeeded. Paris played 69 minutes with 11 against 10; it was crucial and determined which team advanced, as a 4-2 aggregate lead for Barcelona became a PSG victory margin of 6-4. That’s a huge turnaround. No wonder Ilkay Gündogan criticized Araújo for his poor choices.

When García was shown a red card in Monte Carlo for once again choosing to commit a last-man foul, the score was 0-0 and Barcelona comprehensively proved that they could have won 10 to 11 in the following 81 minutes. But her it didn’t. They were the better team and had better scoring opportunities, but were brought down by playing with an extra man against a rival and were ultimately beaten 2-1 by Monaco.

In both cases, the better percentage decision was to let the attacking player take his chance or attack, rather than being sent off.

Modern football, especially in matches that both teams want to win (rather than one of them determined to draw), with its ebb and flow, with the enormous investment in athletic energy and with the constant need to prevent the fatigue eats away at good decision-making and concentration in difficult moments of microseconds – it’s a terrible place to be when you’re playing for long periods of time with one man less than the other team. That’s where Barcelona placed themselves twice in the last three games.

It’s quite another when, as Dani Carvajal’s blatant and completely deliberate red card error against Germany cost him with an expulsion and a mandatory suspension from the semi-final of the European Championship – but almost certainly saved Spain from conceding in extra time or extra time (125th minute) while leading 2–1.

Flick will know that if Osasuna – where Barcelona lost their only game this season and had copious ball-over-the-top chances – can tear his team’s high defensive line to shreds, Bayern can arguably do that on their day. so too.

Vincent Kompany and his coaching staff will also have looked at how Alaves – even though he was beaten 3-0 – could have scored three or four times himself after getting behind Barcelona’s defensive line (even though the Basque team were on numerous occasions offside).

Flick has already confirmed that Barcelona’s goalkeeper Iñaki Peña will play on Wednesday, and he looks shaky – just like Bambi on ice, in my opinion. This is a player who is extremely lacking in confidence, especially when dealing with crosses in a crowded area and positioning himself well outside his penalty area when Barcelona are high up the pitch. He has to be the sweeper keeper.

The conclusion is this: Bayern will certainly be able to wriggle free from Barcelona’s high and mid-press, allowing them to leave runners free behind the high defensive line. At that point, Flick’s defenders will be thinking, “I don’t really support Peña making too many one-on-one saves in this situation.” And they will be tempted to commit fouls that, if judged poorly, will lead to red card situations.

They must ignore that temptation, trust their teammates to do a better job of pressing as the match progresses and trust that Peña can perform as well as his work against Osasuna and Alaves was surprisingly poor.

If Flick’s men have any chance of beating Bayern, they simply cannot finish with ten men for most of the match. A situation that is far from unlikely.

Stay tuned, this match will tell us a lot about the Spanish leaders ahead of El Clásico against Real Madrid on Saturday (LIVE streaming: 3:00 PM ET, ESPN+, US only). And about how difficult it will be to qualify for Champions League football in the new year.