With the debacle in Barcelona, Barcala and Bayern experienced a bitter reality check and quite a crash landing. In the medium and long term, the Bayern women’s ambitions are still high, as club director Bianca Rech recently confirmed. “We have done very successful work in recent years – now it’s about meeting the expectations of top European football,” said Rech and emphasized: “The team and those responsible are in agreement: we now want to go one step further.”
But the international competition seemed to have run away recently. Last season Munich ended in the quarter-finals. Now the embarrassment in Barcelona followed. The former Wolfsburg player Ewa Pajor with a brace, ex-world footballer Alexia Putellas, Esmee Brugts, Salma Paralluelo and Claudia Pina twice scored the goals for the Spaniards. Barcelona, finalists last season, particularly enjoy playing against German teams at the moment.
In March, the traditional Catalan club won the two quarter-final games against VfL Wolfsburg 6:1 and 4:1 – now followed by a 7:1 against the German leader. Bayern’s only goalscorer Klara Bühl admitted after the final whistle: “We deserved to lose, even if the defeat was too great for our expectations.” They “did their best, but we have to reflect on it and learn the right lessons from it.”
The Munich women don’t have much time for that. The top game in the Bundesliga awaits the runners-up from VfL Wolfsburg on Saturday. After five matchdays in the Bundesliga, both teams have collected 13 points and the same goal difference (+13). Due to the larger number of goals scored this season, VfL will be first in the home game against the double winner. At the national level, the next reality check awaits coach Barcala and Bayern.
So after just a few weeks, Barcala gets a crash course in what it means to be head coach at FC Bayern. Before his engagement in Munich, Barcala was a coach at Servette Geneva for two years and won the double in his first year with the Swiss in the 2023/24 season. From 2019 to 2021 he was assistant coach of Girondins Bordeaux Women, FC Aarau (September 2021 to December 2022) and the Scottish women’s national team (2021 to 2024).