Balde: We have to go for the Champions League next year. We’ve been knocked out twice in a row in the group stage, but we have a great team

It will be three years since Barcelona last looked at the knockout stages of the Champions League. In the last two years, it has been eliminated in the group stage, but that does not sit well with Alejandro Balde, who has declared an assault on next year’s trophy.

Barcelona finally dominated La Liga after four years and won the title for the first time since 2019. But it is still not doing well on the European stage.

In the season before last, it finished third in a group with Bayern and Benfica Lisbon and wandered into the Europa League, where it crashed out in the quarter-finals against Frankfurt.

They didn’t want a repeat of that collapse, so they stepped up in the summer. Lewandowski, Raphinha, Koundé, Kessié, Christensen and others came in, but it was no use.

The Blaugranas finished third in a group with Inter and Bayern and had to settle for the Europa League again.

But the goal of winning at least the second European competition didn’t work out, as Barcelona were eliminated in the first round by Manchester United. And for next year, the Catalans want to finally do something about it.

“Next season we have to go for the Champions League. Two seasons in a row we were knocked out in the group stage, but I think we have a great team that can fight for trophies, ” said Barcelona defender Alejandro Balde in an interview with the daily MARCA.

With the title, Barcelona will finally be in the first basket of the Champions League group, so it is not threatened by any giant from the first basket, as was the case with Bayern Munich in the last two years.

Source: MARCA