Barcelona’s bizarre schedule in October, featuring five headline games

Barcelona learned their fate in the UEFA Champions League group stages this past Thursday, as they were drawn into a challenging Group C, alongside Bayern Munich, Inter Milan and Viktoria Plzen.

Earlier today, the fixture list for the group stages of the Champions League was made public and Barcelona’s schedule for the month of October, in particular, looks horrible on paper.

Barça begin their group stage campaign with an easy assignment at Spotify Camp Nou against Viktoria Plzen next month, before they travel to Bayern Munich for their second group game on September 13.

The Catalans then have a La Liga encounter against Elche CF on September 17 before going into the two-week international break.

But things will get extremely tricky for the Blaugrana once they return from the international break. They first lock horns with RCD Mallorca away from home, a match they will be expected to bag all three points.

Then begins the dreaded run for the Blaugrana as they face Inter Milan at the Giuseppe Meazza on October 4 in the Champions League, before welcoming Celta Vigo to Spotify Camp Nou on October 9 for a potential banana-skin fixture in La Liga.

Four days later, they will clash with Inter Milan again at home this time in the UCL before the biggest match in the La Liga calendar, El Clasico against Real Madrid, arrives on October 16 at the Santiago Bernabeu.

After having faced Inter and Real Madrid in less than a week, there will be no respite for the Blaugrana as they will take on Villarreal and Athletic Club back-to-back in La Liga, both at home.

Barça will then welcome Bayern Munich to Spotify Camp Nou on October 26 for their penultimate group game of the Champions League before ending the month with a trip to the Mestalla to face off against Gennaro Gattuso’s Valencia.

So, the month of October sees Barcelona play in nine matches across all competitions, of which the five headliners against Inter Milan (x2), Real Madrid, Villarreal and Bayern Munich – could end up defining their campaign.