The Euro Preview: Barcelona in shambles, Dortmund struggling

Barcelona are at a crossroads, Dortmund’s fans are winners as their team loses and Juventus are flying high.

La Liga

Barcelona appear to be doing their best Arsenal impersonation. And not in the go-undefeated-and-win-the-title way, but in the play-like-absolute-garbage-and-lose-to-inferior-teams way.

Obviously, Juventus are not an inferior team, but losing to them 3-0 in in a first leg Champions League quarterfinal match without putting up much of a fight, like Barca did on Wednesday, is troubling. The failure in Turin was made all the worse by the loss the Catalans suffered four days earlier in La Liga play: they traveled to 14th-place Malaga and got beat 2-0. I don’t think you, dear reader, need me to point out just how horrendous that is. But I will let you know that Neymar was shown a straight red, reacted poorly to said red card and received a three game suspension that will see him miss the huge Clasico on April 23.

The silver lining for Barca from this stretch was that rivals Real Madrid settled for a draw in the Madrid derby against Atletico — who also won their Champions League quarterfinal first leg on Wednesday — on Saturday, leaving Barca only three points behind the leaders. Real’s Champions League quarterfinal experience against Bayern Munich was like Barcelona’s, except that it was completely the opposite. They left Munich with a 2-1 lead in the tie thanks to two goals from demigod Cristiano Ronaldo.

With El Clasico a week away, Barcelona will host sixth-place Real Sociedad while Real Madrid pay a visit to 18th-place Sporting Gijon. Both matches are on Saturday. How Barca respond after this terrible stretch will decide whether we have a La Liga title race or not. Speaking for all neutral fans, I hope they bounce back.

Bundesliga

Bayern Munich recovered from their second league loss of the season by dismantling Borussia Dortmund in Der Klassiker 4-1 on Saturday in Munich. Their lead at the top of the table remains steady at 10 points as RB Leipzig also won on the weekend.

Dortmund also had a tough midweek Champions League quarterfinal matchup against a highly active Monaco side. The fact that their bus was bombed on the way to Signal Iduna Park on Tuesday surely didn’t help matters. The incident left defender Marc Bartra sidelined for a month with an injury to his arm and caused the game to be delayed until Wednesday.

A direct anesthetic was applied to the fear of terror after the incident as BVB fans welcomed Monaco supporters, who hadn’t planned on staying that long, into their homes on Tuesday night. The next day, at the match, both groups of supporters sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” together. If that doesn’t give you a fresh case of the feels I don’t think we can be friends.

Dortmund would go onto lose 3-2, leaving them with a lot of work to do in the return leg at Monaco next week. Domestically, they will try to get back on track, and retake third place from Hoffenheim, on Saturday as they host ninth-place Frankfurt, who are winless in their last six Bundesliga matches. On the same day, Bayern Munich travel to 12th-place Leverkusen while RB Leipzig welcome sixth-place Freiburg.

Serie A

In addition to their nice victory over Barcelona in the Champions League, Serie A leaders Juventus got back to their winning ways domestically by defeating Chievo 2-0 last Saturday thanks to a Gonzalo Higuain brace. Second-place Roma and third-place Napoli both also won, holding Juve’s lead at the top to six points.

Juventus travel to last-place Pescara — they’ve won two games all season — while Roma host a surging Atalanta and Napoli host 11th-place Udinese, all on Saturday. The highest profile match of the weekend, however, is the Milan derby. AC Milan hold a two point advantage over Inter as the two clubs try to climb into the top four.

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Bonus goal(s)

Next great Argentinean superstar Paulo Dybala’s delicious double downed Barca in the Champions League Wednesday.

See you again next week for all your Euro soccer, and alliteration, needs.