Tough Champions League Group Won’t Change Barcelona Aim of Wresting Back Trophy

It’s too soon for all concerned, but the UEFA Champions League draw has pitted Luis Enrique’s Barcelona against Pep Guardiola and Claudio Bravo’s Manchester City in Group C. They will cross paths twice before the dust has had time to settle on the coach’s arrival and that of their new goalkeeper.

The Chile international was the safety net as Barca won La Liga twice in succession and the man whom the club made the difficult decision to sell, finally relieving the pressure from the situation between Bravo and Marc-Andre ter Stegen.

Seeing Guardiola go up against Barcelona again will also be intriguing, although this is a battle we have seen before, with Barcelona seeing off his Bayern Munich side in the Champions League semi-finals in 2015.

Regardless of the group they have been given—and it is a tough one—Barcelona’s aim will not waver, no matter the distractions that lie ahead. This year they are going out to wrest the Champions League trophy back off Real Madrid and re-establish their dominance of Europe’s premier competition.

Even if they fail to do so, they will still have a record of four wins in the last 12 editions of the trophy, which means one year in three that Barcelona have ended up victorious, an outstanding feat. But modern football demands success all the time and, after all, Real Madrid’s record of 11 European Cups isn’t going to beat itself.

Barcelona’s heavy investment this summer should give them the depth they need to compete for the trophy. That’s where they lost it last season, as tired players hit a dip at a crucial moment of the season and were eliminated in the quarter-finals by Atletico Madrid.

Now manager Luis Enrique has enough resources to keep his key men in tip-top shape for when the crunch games come.

Iconic centre-back Gerard Pique embodies Barcelona’s desire to win the Champions League and can upset their archrivals more than any other player. Two recent moments emphasise this.

Firstly, in a promotional event at Barcelona’s casino he agreed to do some interviews. One was with Mundo Deportivo, in which Pique was asked about the Champions League. He replied (h/t ESPN):

It’s the top competition and the most prestigious one. We are Barca, we have the duty to try to win every title. We hope this will be a great year.

For the last two years we have won the La Liga and Copa del Rey titles and we have proved by far that we are the best team in this country by a big margin.

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