Losing the first leg of the Champions League quarter final hurt. It hurt a lot. The 60,000 souls at Spotify Camp Nou on Wednesday urged their team on relentlessly, but a red card for Cubarsí and two goals very much against the run of play have left Barça needing another heroic comeback if they are to cancel out the deficit at the Metropolitano and advance to the semi-finals.
It’s certainly a difficult ask. But Barça are more than capable of getting the result they need. All they need to do is play as well as they did in the first leg, but this time also deliver the goods up front. Goals were lacking in the first leg, but that doesn’t mean they won’t start flowing when the action resumes in Madrid.
Better with eleven or ten
Barça generated more chances against Atlético Madrid in the first leg, both before and after being reduced to ten men. Their 18 attempts on goal were more than three times the mere five that the red-and-whites mustered. But it’s also important to get those shots on target. Atlético did so three times, Barça seven, and it was shooting accuracy that ultimately split the teams.
Barça’s expected goals rate of 1.21 compared to the 0.45 for Atlético shows that the game was always there for the taking. Under normal circumstances, that’s what would have happened. But Wednesday was one of those days when things just weren’t happening like they usually do.
Full faith
This is only the twelfth time that Barça have lost a Champions League (or European Cup) first leg by two goals or more. The good news is that in an impressive five of those instances the Catalans produced a comeback in the second leg and went on to qualify regardless. The bad news is that all five of those comebacks happened in their own stadium. They have never achieved the feat away from home. Well, there’s a first time for everything…
Rashford shows the way
The immensity of the task is reflected by the fact that out of 38 cases when a club has lost a first leg of a Champions League tie at home by more than two goals, only one has gone on to qualify in the second leg. And that team was Manchester United in 2019, who lost 2-0 at Old Trafford to PSG but went on to win 3-1 in Paris. And they did so thanks to an injury time goal from none other than… Marcus Rashford.
Could the Englishman deliver again? His finishing wasn’t always the best, but he was Barça’s most active player in the first leg, with no fewer than seven shots, four of them on target. He kept trying and trying and trying, as did the rest of the team. On Wednesday, without fortune. Next Tuesday? Who knows… But what’s for sure is that anyone who is assuming that this semi-final is decided is very much mistaken.
