Barcelona Downed By Monaco As Arsenal Held In Champions League Stalemate
Barcelona began their Champions League campaign with a 2-1 loss to Monaco after Marc-Andre ter Stegen's horror show and Eric Garcia's early red card.
Barcelona are almost a decade without a Champions League title and they are hoping that 2024/25 will finally be the season where they break their duck. However, the start of their campaign did not get off to a very good start after Eric Garcia was forced to take a red card as the last man after captain Marc-Andre ter Stegen's loose ball right in front of Barcelona's box. It wasn't too long afterwards that Maghnes Akliouche opened the scoring for Monaco as the French side peppered Barcelona's goal with shots due to a man advantage.
Once more, Lamine Yamal scored a thundering goal from outside the box to pull a rather boring Barcelona team back into the match.
Monaco's supremacy persisted in the second half as Barcelona was unable to generate any opportunities of their own or pose a threat to Philipp Kohn. With 20 minutes remaining, George Ilenikhena scored on the counter to give Monaco the lead once more.
THE BIG LOSER.
Ter Stegen was the main problem for Barca during the 90 minutes as the German battled, as he has so often done on European evenings. Garcia was sent off for a very bad pass from ter Stegen into the middle of the field, and the German then missed his near-post attempt on Monaco's opening goal. Then, diving early, he was incredibly soft on Ilenikhena's shot, which went straight through him and into Monaco's winner.
WHAT COMES NEXT?
Barcelona will now look to dust off the result quickly as they will take on Villarreal at the Estadio de la Ceramica on Sunday, September 22.
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