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Barcelona need to move on from the past

By Ernesto Hernandez

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - MAY 07: Luis Suarez of Barcelona shows his dejection during the UEFA Champions League Semi Final second leg match between Liverpool and Barcelona at Anfield on May 07, 2019 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - MAY 07: Luis Suarez of Barcelona shows his dejection during the UEFA Champions League Semi Final second leg match between Liverpool and Barcelona at Anfield on May 07, 2019 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images) /
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To have a chance of winning the Champions League, Barcelona need to move on from recent failures.

Barcelona’s continued chase for Champions League glory begins when they take on Borussia Dortmund in Germany. Lionel Messi is not expected to feature in the starting line-up but could make the bench.

Line-ups aside, this will be another edition of the tournament in which Barcelona are coming off a humiliating exit. The Catalans have blown three goals lead the past two seasons. First against Roma and then last season against Liverpool.

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Despite the talk of them learning their lesson prior to their game at Anfield, they still went out and played scared and let go an opportunity of making the final. These types of collapses stick with the players involved.

If Barcelona want to have a shot of getting past their last two exits and winning another European titles, they need to put Roma and Liverpool behind them. The mental aspect, more than anything, will be the key if and when they move past the group stage.

Having those losses in the back of their minds is not good for anyone, including the manager. Ernesto Valverde has been rightly criticized for the way his team played in both elimination games. They were too conservative and let the other team dictate the play which ultimately cost him and his team.

Players like Antoine Griezmann and Frenkie de Jong were brought in to try to get Barcelona over the line in this tournament. The Frenchman was brought in to ease some of the creative pressure off of Lionel Messi and the Dutchman to provide more spark and control from midfield. Strangely enough, they too dealt with dramatic Champions League exits in their previous teams.

The veterans in the squad like Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets, Luis Suarez, and the aforementioned Messi have to move on and extinguish the ghosts. For Pique and Busquets, they need to show that they can still hack it when it counts. For Suarez, he needs to get off the mark and score an away Champions League goal.

For Messi, he needs to feel that this team can still win on the big stage. In his most recent interview with Sport, the Argentine mentioned that he was happy at the club but that he needed to believe that they could win important titles. It doesn’t take much to realize that he was referencing the European title.

There is little doubt that they will qualify out of what looks to be the toughest group in the group stage. They faced something similar last season and topped their group. However, the real test begins in the knock-out round.

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Not only will their performance be under a magnifying glass, but what they say leading up to these games as well. Should they fail to move on from the failures of the past, they are headed once again to a disappointing Champions League exit.

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