5 clubs you won't believe have a winning record against Barcelona
FC Barcelona is known as one of the biggest clubs in football history. The Catalan giants have won four Champions League titles this century and one European Cup in 1992.
But even great clubs have had a bad night. There are few teams Barcelona have faced only once and lost like Slovan Bratislava and Sao Paulo. Then there are bigger clubs like Bayern Munich and Liverpool to whom Barcelona has more losses than wins. In fact, the Catalan club has a negative record against their arch-rivals Real Madrid.
But there are sides with a winning record against Barcelona that will raise some eyebrows.
#5 CSKA Moscow (2 games – 1 draw, 1 win for CSKA)
CSKA Moscow won the promotion to the Soviet Union's first division in 1989 and after strong improvements, the club won the title and the cup just two years later.
In the 1992 European Cup second round after convincingly beating an Icelandic side, CSKA had to face the title holders Barcelona. The Russian team could've felt a bit optimistic as in the first round European champion's managed only a 1-0 aggregate victory against Norway's side Viking.
However, there were more negatives as CSKA suffered many squad problems. Because of the Soviet Union falling few of the clubs leaders had left Russia. But CSKA’s issues extended far beyond a transfer exodus – their first team goalkeeper died in a car crash. So the Russian fans didn't expect a fairytale against Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona.
The Spanish giant arrived in Moscow with a star-filled team with the likes of Michael Laudrup, Ronald Koeman, Hristo Stoichkov, Aitor Begiristain and Josep Guardiola. Even though CSKA lined up an with an unknown side, they were the ones to take the lead in the first half after Guardiola's mistake. On the 59th minute, the Catalans scored an equalizer and went home with a draw.
That at the time seemed enough - who could've imagined CSKA getting even a draw at Camp Nou with its intimidating atmosphere.
The second leg started as Barcelona hoped it would and by the 31st minute, the score was 2-0 and it all looked to be over. But CSKA got a crucial goal just before the halftime and the game was turned on its head. The Russians needed just one more goal to win the tie.
CSKA controlled the game in the second half and made the score level in the 57th minute. Just four minutes later 19-year-old Dmitri Karsakov made a beautiful back-heel finish on an amazing counter-attack. All of a sudden Barcelona needed two more goals but CSKA had completely shut down the game.
Interesting to think that this result went largely unnoticed as CSKA couldn't afford the broadcasting rights in Barcelona and only a few newspapers were able to send their reporters to the match. To make it worse, CSKA couldn't impress in the group stages and finished with only two points from six games.