Are Barcelona as strong as their league results suggest?
No real shockwaves were sent across Europe when Barcelona crashed out of the Champions League group stage in November. Despite all the summer investment, there was a palpable sense that they were still a level behind Bayern Munich, Internazionale and the competition’s true elite.
Yet domestically, Barca have kept on winning. They hit 50 points by the league’s halfway stage and, perhaps even more impressively, kept19 clean sheets in their opening 25 games. Their defensive resilience and authoritative brilliance of goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen saw them record six successive away victories by
