Garcia Scare Jolts Barcelona Ahead of Sevilla Clash
Barcelona’s perfect start has hit its first scare, and it comes from the one position that had finally stopped keeping their fans awake at night.
Garcia scare jolts Barcelona
Joan Garcia, the calm at the back of Hansi Flick’s flying Barcelona, limped out of the match against Racing Santander and left a knot in the stomach of the Catalan support. He was withdrawn at half-time, Flick turning to veteran Wojciech Szczesny for the first time this season.
On the surface, it looked like a simple tactical tweak. It wasn’t.
Chasing a ball that had run out of play near the end of the first half, Garcia slipped on the wet artificial turf, his ankle twisting awkwardly as he skidded. The early reports insist the injury is minor, but they stop short of guaranteeing his presence next Saturday at the “Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan” against Sevilla in La Liga’s seventh round.
For Barcelona, that uncertainty is enough to reopen an old wound.
Echoes of last season’s collapse
If Garcia does miss the trip to Sevilla, the déjà vu will be brutal.
Last season began with the same kind of optimism. Barcelona ripped through the opening stretch, winning five of their first six league matches and dropping points only in a 1-1 draw with Rayo Vallecano. The mood was buoyant, the project convincing.
Then came Real Oviedo. Garcia picked up an injury, and Flick had no choice but to hand the gloves to Szczesny.
At first, the change seemed manageable. In the very next match, the Pole did his job, guiding Barcelona to a hard-fought 2-1 win over Real Sociedad at the “Spotify Camp Nou”. The stand-in had passed his first exam.
Then the roof caved in.
In the eighth round, at the “Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan”, Barcelona were torn apart 4-1 by Sevilla. Szczesny picked the ball out of his net four times: Alexis Sanchez from the spot, Isaac Romero Bernal, Jose Angel Carmona and Akor Adams all scoring, with Marcus Rashford’s strike the only thin consolation on a grim October night.
That defeat didn’t just dent the table. It scarred the memory.
Szczesny back under the spotlight
Now Barcelona are heading back to the same stadium, with the same questions hanging over the same goalkeeper.
Garcia’s ankle has put Szczesny back in the frame, and his latest audition did nothing to calm anyone. Thrown on at half-time against Racing, he turned a routine passage of play into a moment of chaos. Dwelling on the ball in front of his own goal, he was caught cold by Yasser Zabiri, the Moroccan forward pouncing to punish the hesitation and make it Racing’s second of the night.
One slip on artificial turf. One lapse in concentration. Suddenly, the most in-form team in Spain is staring at its one obvious fault line.
Unstoppable form, familiar fear
The timing could hardly be more dramatic.
Barcelona arrive in Andalusia on an extraordinary run: seven wins from seven in all competitions, six in La Liga and one in the Champions League. They have shredded defences, scoring 33 goals across those matches, a staggering rate that hovers around five per game.
They look ruthless. They look confident. They look like contenders again.
But Sevilla away is not just another fixture on the calendar. It is the place where their season cracked last year, where Szczesny’s worst night in a Barcelona shirt became a turning point.
Now the question hangs over the week: will Flick walk into that cauldron with his first-choice goalkeeper, or will he have to trust the same deputy who has already lived one nightmare there and flirted with disaster against Racing?
Barcelona’s football is terrifying opponents right now. The real test is whether their own past, and the uncertainty in goal, comes back to haunt them at the “Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan” — or whether this is the night they finally break the pattern.
