Barcelona and five other big-spending Champions League flops

Karan Tejwani

Updated: 23 May 2023 08:46 CDT
5 min read

Robert Lewandowski of Barcelona — © ProShots

Barcelona are out of the Champions League, despite a summer of big transfer outlay in which they signed the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha, Jules Kounde and more, spending €153 million in total.

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The Blaugrana took big risks and activated economic levers – the sale of club shares for immediate cash against percentages of future profits – to sign players and it hasn’t paid off.

Champions League progression was crucial to Barcelona, and their exit represents a significant failure this season.

However, they aren't the first big-spending club to exit the Champions League early. Here are five others who had big summer transfer windows and weren’t able to go far in Europe’s top club competition.

Manchester City, 2011-12

This was in Manchester City’s first-ever Champions League participation, and they spent big in the hope of a long run in Europe’s premier club cup competition. Under Roberto Mancini’s leadership, the Cityzens spent €91 million, signing players such as Sergio Aguero, Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy.

Unfortunately for them, they were given a tough group of Bayern Munich, Napoli and Villarreal. They came close to qualification, finishing third with 10 points, behind the German and Italian sides, who were just a point above them. However, this was still a big failure.

READ: Barcelona’s four options to replace struggling Xavi

#OnThisDay in 2011, Manchester City beat Bayern Münich 2-0 at the Etihad.

City were knocked out of the #UCL in the Group Stage with 10 points out of a possible 18.

This remains the highest points total that a team has been knocked out from in Champions League history 😔 pic.twitter.com/2RCDC2JTEr
— mcfc lads (@mcfc_lads) December 7, 2021

Chelsea, 2012-13

A year later, Chelsea repeated that feat, and this was even more embarrassing as they became the first defending champions to not get past the group stage. That summer, Chelsea were led by Roberto Di Matteo, and signed players like Eden Hazard, Oscar and Victor Moses, choosing to focus on the long run.

The total outlay amounted to €109.7m, and they were given a group of Juventus, Danish side Nordsjaelland and Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk. It was the Italian champions and Shakhtar that qualified, sending Chelsea to the Europa League, which they ended up winning after Rafael Benitez replaced the sacked Di Matteo.

Liverpool, 2014-15

Liverpool had a busy summer in 2014, dominated by the sale of star forward Luis Suarez to Barcelona for a big fee. They ended up replacing him, but not nearly as well, as they spent a whopping €151.4 million in that year to rebuild their team and give them a chance of success in the Champions League.

Players such as Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Alberto Moreno and Mario Balotelli were brought in, but they suffered an embarrassing group stage exit, as the group of defending champions Real Madrid, Switzerland’s Basel and Bulgaria’s Ludogorets proved to be too much for them.

Manchester United, 2015-16

Manchester United were back in the Champions League after missing out the previous season, and Louis van Gaal fancied his chances, spending a total of €156m on players such as Anthony Martial, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Morgan Schneiderlin and Matteo Darmian.

However, it was Wolfsburg and PSV that ended up qualifying from that group, with Russia’s CSKA Moscow being the other participants, as the Red Devils dropped down to the Europa League in one of the club’s most embarrassing European campaigns.

OTD 2015 - Manchester United confirmed the signing of Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin.

The Schmidfield... Didn't quite go to plan! 🙄 #mufc #otd #onthisday pic.twitter.com/QVA6ER8vrE
— Stretford Paddock (@StretfordPaddck) July 13, 2018

Paris Saint-Germain, 2017-18

Paris Saint-Germain went into the 2017 transfer window with a revenge mission, having lost the Ligue 1 title to Monaco and suffering the famous Barcelona comeback in the spring of that year. So they broke all records to make Neymar the most expensive player in world football after his €222m deal.

They added to that with a move for Yuri Berchiche and a loan agreement for Kylian Mbappe in a €238 million outlay in total. After romping through the group stage, they faced defending and eventual champions Real Madrid, who proved to be too strong for them.