Draw with Puchov, relegation with Celtic. How did Barcelona do last time out of the Champions League?

Barcelona fell to Bayern on Wednesday and must say goodbye to the Champions League. It will therefore be the second time in 20 years that the club has been in Europe’s second competition. The last time it happened was in the 2003/04 season. How did the Catalans do then?

In the spring, Barcelona will be looking at the modern Europa League for the first time in its history. The last time it played this competition, it was still called the UEFA Cup. That was the 2003/04 season.

Interestingly, it was then the last season without Lionel Messi, who started to write his own chapter in Barcelona from the next season. Now it is the first season without Messi and the Catalans are once again looking to the second prestigious competition.

For now, it is not clear what path awaits the Catalans. But one thing is certain, they will not have it easy. For Sevilla, Leipzig and Dortmund, for example, are in the Europa League, while teams such as Lyon, Monaco, Leicester, Leverkusen and West Ham have advanced directly from the groups. The competition is not the least.

However, we can remember how Barcelona did in this competition back then. First of all, it must be said that it did not go very far, even though it had some very interesting names in its team.

In the very first round of the UEFA Cup, the Catalans were supposed to face Púchov from Slovakia, who now play in the second league, where they are now in the relegation places. And the Slovaks pulled off a miracle in their first match, drawing 1-1 at the Trencin stadium.

Slovak fans could see players like Victor Valdes, Carles Puyol, Luis Enrique, Ronaldino, Patrick Kluivert, Xavi, Ricardo Quaresma and Marc Overmars live. In short, a sensational result.

The rematch at Camp Nou, however, was not so sensational. Barcelona won 8:0 and advanced to the next round, where they beat Panionios Athens of Greece 5:0.

The third round was the last round in which Barcelona could rejoice in their progress. They defeated Brondby 3-1 and faced Celtic, who ended their UEFA Cup run with a 1-0 home win before the quarter-finals. The return leg in Catalonia ended in a goalless draw.

However, Celtic did not have to celebrate their progress for long as they were eliminated by Villarreal in the quarter-finals. Valencia won the whole competition.

Source: UEFA