The story of Barca’s last Champions League triumph

It is now five years since Barcelona’s last success in the Champions League, achieved in 2015 under the guidance of manager Luis Enrique, now Spain’s boss. It was Barca’s fifth win in the competition and fourth win since the turn of the century.

BREAKING: Former Barcelona manager Luis Enrique is confirmed as the new Spain head coach pic.twitter.com/P4m2tS1LIx

— B/R Football (@brfootball) July 9, 2018

It put the club level with Liverpool and Bayern Munich in the overall records, though the English club has since added a sixth trophy, while AC Milan and Real Madrid remain ahead with 7 and 13 wins respectively.

In this article, we will relive that fantastic campaign in Europe, which culminated in success over Juventus at the Olympiastadion in Berlin.

Group stages

Barca were drawn in Group F with a potentially tricky route to the knock-out stage, being drawn alongside Paris Saint-Germain and Ajax, and Cypriot outsiders APOEL. The top two would qualify for the next round and ultimately Enrique’s side booked their passage with relative ease.

A nervy start, and a narrow 1-0 win against APOEL, secured three points in matchday one, but defeat away at PSG followed two weeks later, meaning Barca couldn’t afford any more slip-ups if they wanted to keep qualification in their own hands.

But an upturn in form followed and 12 goals in the next four games secured maximum points from the remaining matches and saw Barcelona qualify as group winners ahead of PSG, who finished well clear of Ajax in third place.

Knock-out stages

Many clubs hope for an easy draw in the last 16, against one of the competition’s so-called lesser sides, but there was nothing simple about Barca’s qualification for the last eight, with emerging English giants Manchester City providing stern opposition.

An incident-packed match at the Etihad Stadium in the first leg saw seven yellow cards, a red card, a missed penalty and a 2-1 win for Barca, thanks to a Luis Suarez brace in the first half. Sergio Aguero responded for City, but the two away goals handed the Blaugrana a handy advantage.

Ivan Rakitic’s goal just after the half-hour settled nerves at the Nou Camp, with Aguero missing a penalty for the visitors 12 minutes from the end. It was enough to see Barca into the last eight, where a rematch with PSG would await.

Once again it was a confident away display that laid the foundations for progress. Another Suarez brace followed Neymar’s opener in the French capital, although an own goal from Jeremy Mathieu three minutes from full-time gave PSG hope ahead of the return leg.

Those hopes were quickly shattered at the Nou Camp as Neymar swept home a first-half brace to secure a 5-1 aggregate win that would take Barca to within 180 minutes of the Final. Standing in their way was Bayern Munich.

This time it was a powerful display at home that helped Barca progress. Two goals from Lionel Messi and Neymar’s strike in the 94th minute gave Enrique’s men a 3-0 advantage to take with them back to Germany.

Bayern would win the second leg 3-2, despite another brace from Neymar, but it wasn’t enough to overturn the deficit and the Blaugrana marched onto the Final, where they’d face Serie A superpower Juventus. This is an area that Barcelona have struggled in of late with Roma and Liverpool both staging incredible comebacks in front of a partisan home crowd. They have maintained their consistency in the league with four league titles in 5 seasons, including 2014/15, and are favourites to achieve that once again with odds of 8/13 in the football betting. However, they will have to address their away leg problems if they want to return to the summit of European football.

The Final

Played at Berlin’s Olympiastadion, the tie saw Barca return to Germany less than one month after their clash with Bayern – and they made the perfect start, going ahead in the fourth minute thanks to Rakitic’s goal.

Alvaro Morata pulled Juve level just after the break, but Barca were back in front less than 15 minutes later thanks to another crucial Suarez goal, and they made sure of victory seven minutes into the injury time through Neymar’s strike on the counter-attack.

The win on 6 June capped an outstanding campaign for Barcelona, completing a treble that arguably eclipsed a similar feat in 2009 as well as a sublime brand of football in 2011, and which was led from the front by that formidable, inimitable trio of Messi, Neymar and Suarez.