What is the story about?
Barcelona’s
hopes of finishing in the Top 8 of the league phase in this season’s Champions League have taken a serious hit thanks to a terrible 3-0 loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night. The Blaugrana were destroyed from start to finish by a Chelsea side that overwhelmed them in every facet of the game, and things didn’t get any better when Ronald Araujo was sent off in stupid fashion just before halftime and allowed things to spiral even further in the second half.
Reactions & Observations
- Welp, that first half was quite the disaster. Barça were second-best tactically, physically, technically, and were completely overwhelmed by Chelsea’s intensity and speed from minute one. A true domination by the home team.
- That said, things might have gone differently had Ferran Torres scored a very easy chance five minutes in. You simply cannot miss that. One-on-one with the keeper, with a whole side of the goal open to you, and you don’t even hit the target. Madness.
- From that moment on, Chelsea started to dominate and create chances with scary ease, and they had two goals disallowed before finally finding the breakthrough they deserved thanks to a combined own goal by Ferran and Jules Kounde.
- Ronald Araujo was sent off before halftime after two of the dumbest yellow cards you’ll see. He’s literally the captain, and he can’t stay on the pitch for 45 minutes without doing something brain-dead in a big Champions League game on the road. Quite simply untrustworthy when it matters most.
- Barça’s offside trap worked well a few times in the first half and denied another goal by Andrey Santos, but there was nothing to do about Estêvão: what a great individual goal by a very special Brazilian talent. 2-0 Chelsea, and this one’s over before the hour mark.
- Flick officially went into damage limitation mode with Andreas Christensen in midfield and Raphinha up front, with Fermín López and Robert Lewandowski going off as the coach tried protect the positive goal difference.
- Then Alejandro Balde did a poor job of keeping the offside trap, and Liam Delap made it 3-0. This just keeps getting worse.
- The simple truth about tonight is this: Barça are not at Chelsea’s level. Even before the red card, the Blues were stronger, more intense, faster, more organized defensively, passed the ball better, were more clinical up front, and honestly, looked like the better coached team. Pedri would have made a difference with his ability to keep the ball against any type of press, but he wouldn’t have solved every problem.
- Another thing that was made clear tonight: there is a serious gap between Barça and the best teams in Europe. And as good as Chelsea were tonight, they are not as good as Arsenal, Bayern Munich or PSG. That’s a pretty big reality check.
