How often do Barcelona lose at home?

Who wears blue-and-garnet stripes and scarcely loses at home? Barcelona. We may be fast approaching yuletide, the season of half-baked one-liners, dodgy dad jokes and tacky gadgets funnelling out of Christmas crackers, but the size of the task facing Tottenham Hotspur who visit Catalonia on Tuesday night is no laughing matter.

The reality is they have to win, or at least match, Internazionale’s result against bottom-of-the-group PSV Eindhoven to guarantee qualification for the knockout stages of the Champions League. Saying that, Mauricio Pochettino’s side probably do not know whether to laugh or cry given Barça’s imperious formperformance at the Camp Nou.

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Since 13 August 2008, Barcelona have played 306 home games in all competitions, losing just 17 (5.5%) of them, including four defeats against Real Madrid. Even some of those losses should be taken with a pinch of salt. Take the defeat against Osasuna in 2009 for example, when Pep Guardiola fielded an understrength side – resting Lionel Messi, Xavi and co – four days before beating Manchester United in the Champions League final. In short, backing Barcelona on home soil has been printing money for some time.

Guardiola lost seven matches at the Camp Nou in four years, while Luis Enrique lost five in three. Some quick maths underlines the difficulty of the challenge in store, with Barça having lost an average of 1.45 games per campaign across the past 10 seasons, from 2008-9 until 2017-18.

Unfortunately for Tottenham, it is impossible to lose 0.45 of a game and the bad news is that Barça have already lost once this year, against Real Betis last month. But the good news, if there is any at all, is the slither of scope for possibly one more unprecedented slip-up. As the saying goes, it is the hope that kills you.

Barcelona, of course, are already through, having already walked Group B. After Spurs gave themselves a fighting chance against Inter, Pochettino, as you would expect, was reluctant to cast this test as mission impossible, though it is everything but. Barcelona have bullied and belittled countless teams on their patch, with English sides among those to suffer in recent years. Their last three games at home to English clubs have resulted in an aggregate score of 10-1 in their favour, 3-0, 4-0 and 3-1 wins against Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal respectively. Liverpool were the last English team to win at the Camp Nou, in the Champions League last-16 in 2007.

Spurs are not naive enough to expect gifts, but with Barcelona having already qualified, their motivation will naturally come under scrutiny. It is just as well then that Pochettino wrapped Harry Kane, his captain, and Christian Eriksen in cotton wool for Saturday’s cruise at Leicester; even then, you cannot help but feel it may not be enough to nark a beast like Barça.