Given a collapse in Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday, Hansi Flick in Barcelona on the right track for the semi-finals of the Champions League and a return to the European elite after a rocky decade in Catalonia. A semi-final investment, where Barcelona would probably be the favorites to make the final, would so far represent the high water brand for the Catalan giants of the Messi Post-Lionel era. Four points away from Real Madrid in the League with seven games to play, and will also face Los Blancos in the Copa del Ray final, Barcelona has benefited from its best season since Messi’s departure.
Since he won everything in Berlin in 2015, Barcelona has only once made the semi-finals of the Champions League once. This came in 2018-2019, although the match is the one that the Catalans prefer to forget.
In this equality, Barcelona has become a footnote in the story of an incredible return from Liverpool, linked to the title, leaving a 3-0 victory in the first leg in a 4-0 defeat in Anfield.
The following season, Barcelona was beaten 8-2 by a Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals.
Barcelona did not return to the quarter-finals only in 2023-24, when their 3-2 victory in the first leg in the Paris Saint-Germain advance was overthrown in a kick 4-1 at home.
Outside the field, Barcelona endured an apparently endless series of financial scandals, alongside the loss of Messi, his best player of all time, on a free transfer in 2021.
‘We want to continue’
This season, however, with Messi’s heir, the apparent Lamine Yamal pulling alongside Raphina and the veteran Robert Lewandowski, Barcelona rethures their best, especially against the best opposition.
In addition to the 4-0 victory on Wednesday against Dortmund, finalists of the Champions League last season, the 4-1 victory of Barcelona against Bayern in the group phases has shown how the ruthless Flitable Flick team may be.
In two clashes with Real this season, Barcelona won 4-0 and 5-2.
In addition to showing that there is life after Messi in Barcelona, this season has been that of Vindication for Flick.
Despite Bayern’s management to a season of six tryphys, including the Champions League in 2019-20, the bad passage of Flick as a boss of Germany raised doubts about its capacities.
Winning the final of the Champions League of this season, in Munich’s Allianz Arena no less, would show that the 60 -year -old really belongs among the elite.
On Saturday, a radiant film told journalists: “We have arrived so far, but we want to continue on this path.
“I absolutely appreciate being able to work with my coach staff and this team. We have an incredible atmosphere in the side.”
‘The biggest miracle’
Wednesday hosts can draw inspiration from the return of Liverpool five years ago under their former coach Jurgen Klopp, but are not illustrated on the task level.
Folling to retaliate in European affirmations in the Bundesliga, the 2-2 draw from Dortmund to Bayern on Saturday was a welcome response after the rupture in Barcelona.
Sports director Lars Ricken said on Saturday “We need the biggest miracle in the history of Borussia Dortmund” to go to the semi-finals.
Ricken, a local product that was one of the biggest club scorers – the final victory of the 1997 Champions League against Juventus – is not unrelated to the big European nights in black and yellow.
“We have to try to win, that it is enough to move forward, I don’t know.”
Note “optimistic but realistic”, Dortmund coach Niko Kovac said his team wanted to save against Tuesday.
“But without a spark, a spark of hope, it would not make sense.
“Our ambition is to win the match. Is 1-0, 2-1? We play at home, so we would like to offer a gift to all our supporters.”
(With the exception of the title, this story has not been published by NDTV staff and is published from a unionized flow.)
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