FC Barcelona learned who its 2024/2025 Champions League group stage opponents will be after the … [+]
FC Barcelona learned who its 2024/2025 Champions League league phase opponents will be as that part of the competition’s draw was made in Monaco on Thursday.
The Catalans will play Bayern Munich at home, Borussia Dortmund away, Atalanta at home, Benfica away, Young Boys at home, Red Star Belgrade away, Brest at home and Monaco away.
As previous five-time winners of the competition, Barca will chase its first UCL crown since 2015, which is when current Paris Saint-Germain manager Luis Enrique – with help from the ‘MSN’ trio of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar – led his former club to a 2-1 win in a Berlin final against Juventus.
Barca has been no further than the semifinals, which it reached in 2019. Messi and Co looked to be on their way to a Madrid decider after a resounding 3-0 win over Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool in the last four first leg.
At Anfield, however, Barca collapsed and succumbed to the Premier League giants who beat them 4-0 ahead of going on to lift the big-eared trophy at Tottenham Hotspur’s expense at Atletico Madrid’s Metropolitano ground.
Barca has manged two quarterfinals appearances since then. The first of those came the following season in 2019/2020, in a redesigned knockout phase which had to take place in Lisbon because of the pandemic.
Overseen by new Barca boss Hansi Flick, eventual winners Bayern Munich thrashed the Blaugrana 8-2 in its darkest night on the continent.
Then last season, Barca threw away what was at one point a 3-1 lead on aggregate against Luis Enrique’s PSG in the last eight.
Barca were winning 2-1 at the start of the second leg because of winning by that score in Paris in the first two team’s maiden last eight meeting.
Raphinha scored to increase the advantage by two goals in Montjuic in the return leg, but a rash red card for Ronald Araujo resulted in PSG running riot and achieving a 4-1 win on the night and a 6-4 triumph overall.
In terms of financial hardship, Barca will want to go as far as it can in this edition of the competition because of the bonus and television money that would come its way.
Though a more fixed schedule will be determined on Saturday, Braca will kick off in the Champions League between September 17 and 19.
