Barcelona risked it all to field its current squad, but just halfway through the UCL group stage, it’s likely in must-win territory. jonawils on its defeat to Inter and the pressure to perform at its peak while the new pieces are still coming together
For Barcelona, suddenly, there is pressure. Tuesday’s 1–0 defeat at Inter Milan means that at the halfway stage of the Champions League group stage it sits third in the group, three points behind Inter and six behind Bayern Munich. If Xavi’s side does not beat Inter at home next week, the likelihood is that it will go out of the Champions League before the knockout stage for the second successive season.
And this is not even an Inter Milan side that’s in form. After coming so close to defending its title last season, this has not been a good start to the campaign for Simone Inzaghi, whose side lies ninth in Serie A, having lost four games already this season, including three of the previous four. In part, that’s a result of the muscular problems that have kept Romelu Lukaku out since the end of August, preventing him from re-establishing his partnership with Lautaro Martínez.
At the same time, Inter always offered a threat on the break. Hakan Çalhanoğlu had given a warning with one long-range effort that Marc-Andre ter-Stegen tipped over, and Inter probably would have had a penalty but for an offside in the build-up on another sequence, but the breakthrough did arrive in first-half injury time, with Çalhanoğlu scoring with a clever reverse shot from just outside the box.
The failure to score at Bayern could perhaps be written off as slightly freakish: Barça was the better side for much of the game, but failed to score and was undone by a quick-fire double just after halftime. If anything, Tuesday’s was a more worrying performance. Away at Bayern, the issue was a failure to take opportunities; this was more about not creating them at all.
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