In the world of football, it's often said that attack wins games... but defense wins championships. And that has been, precisely, the biggest weakness that doomed FC Barcelona, which fell just short of returning to a Champions League final 10 years later after being eliminated in the semifinals by Inter Milan, a team that managed to score a total of seven goals against the side coached by Hansi Flick over the course of the tie.

Barcelona’s powerful attack has not been able to make up for its poor defensive performance

If Barcelona managed to get this far, it's because it long left behind the traumas that had been dragging it down in recent years, becoming a team that, with the arrival of Hansi Flick, embraced chaos. Over the 14 matches Barcelona has played in this new Champions League format — from the league phase to the semifinals — it has scored in every game, tallying a total of 43 goals. To put it in perspective, while we wait to see what PSG and Arsenal do tonight, Bayern Munich is the second-highest scoring team in this Champions League... with 31 goals. That’s 12 fewer than Barcelona.

With numbers like these, it’s clear you needed to score a lot to knock this Barcelona out of the Champions League. However, that’s been its main weakness, as the team has looked incredibly fragile every time opponents took shots at Szczesny’s goal — despite being the eighth team with the fewest shots faced per match in this Champions League.

Barcelona has conceded 24 goals in this Champions League

The problem, however, is that the highly aggressive model Hansi Flick implemented from day one led to opponents having extremely favorable chances. That’s the only way to explain how Barcelona has conceded 24 goals in the 14 games it played in this Champions League. These numbers are only surpassed by RB Salzburg (27) and Slovan Bratislava (27)... though both teams played significantly fewer matches after being eliminated in the first phase of the competition.

The numbers are even more concerning when compared to the other three teams that reached the Champions League semifinals. Inter Milan, for example, conceded more goals in this tie against Barcelona than in all their other matches combined. PSG has only conceded 13 goals in 15 matches... while Arsenal is frightening with just eight goals allowed throughout the entire tournament.