Barcelona goes to play for its life. A loss to Inter will relegate them to the Europa League, can they avert disaster?

The fight for life. Also against ridicule. If Barcelona don’t beat Inter tonight, they’ll be in big trouble, and also a huge laughing stock of rival fans. How will the Champions League group stage match play out?

It would be a huge blow. Barcelona already faced huge ridicule last season, when they finished third in a group with Bayern Munich, Benfica Lisbon and Dynamo Kiev and wandered into the Europa League for the first time in two decades.

In the summer, president Joan Laporta turned the club inside out, selling everything he could, raising money which he promptly spent on big signings. He made the Barcelona fans happy, he wanted to be an immediate contender for La Liga and the Champions League. But after three Champions League games, the Blaugranas are in trouble.

They could only beat total outsider Viktoria Plzen, then lost to Bayern and Inter. After three rounds, they have only three points, Inter 6 and Bayern 9.

Loss = Europa League

And before the rematch at Camp Nou, Barcelona is in a difficult situation. If they lose to Inter and Bayern beat Plzen, they will say goodbye to qualifying for the eight-finals and will have to settle for the Europa League. Again.

However, even a draw doesn’t solve much. The Culés would then have to beat both Plzen and Bayern and hope Inter don’t win twice as well. If Barcelona don’t beat Bayern, who they haven’t been able to challenge much lately, they would also end up on the border of the group stage.

With Barcelona winning by one goal and picking up the same number of points, the score would then matter. Either way, it’s not a very positive outlook for the Culés.

Xavi’s record in the Champions League is not good either. The Barcelona coach has coached 5 matches in the most prestigious competition and lost 3 of them. He managed to beat only Viktoria Plzen and drew with Benfica Lisbon. He lost twice to Bayern and once to Inter.

However, Xavi did not improve his record in the Europa League either. In fact, he played 11 cup matches and won only 3 times. He only beat Pilsen, Napoli and Galatasaray. The draws came against Benfica, Napoli, Galatasaray and Frankfurt, while the defeats came against Bayern (twice), Inter and Frankfurt.

So Barcelona will be playing for their lives tonight. Can they save it?

Source: UEFA, Barcelona