Barcelona officially secured qualification to the round of 16 of the Champions League following a 2-1 win over Porto at the Luis Companis Olympic Stadium in the fifth round of the group stage.
The groups have formed the major complex for Xavi Hernandez since he took charge of coaching the Catalan club in 2021.
In his first season, the Catalan coach failed to pass from a group that included Bayern Munich, Benfica, and Dynamo Kiev, and finished third, relegating the Blaugrana to the European League.
During this edition, Barça lost to Eintracht Frankfurt in the quarter-finals of the Europa League at Camp Nou.
Xavi's consolation for this edition was that he came with the team's situation disastrous during the era of coach Ronald Koeman, except what happened the following season was also tragic.
Barcelona was drawn once again with Bayern Munich, but it also brought Inter into the group, along with Viktoria Plzeň.
Barcelona failed to qualify and finished in third place and was relegated again to the Europa League, this time being eliminated from the round of 16 by Manchester United.
But in the 2023-2024 edition, Xavi was able to untie the knot and reach the round of 16 before the end of the group round, which made the Catalan coach happy after defeating Porto and ensuring qualification.
The Catalan coach said in his speech to the media, “We needed to qualify for the round of 16 after two years, especially after the bad luck in the European League.”
It is noteworthy that Barcelona has qualified for first place, which may give it an easy opponent in the round of 16 and facilitate its task of crossing into the quarter-finals.
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