Barcelona, competing in their 19th straight Champions League group stage, were drawn in Group E and handed a somewhat easy group, compared to their treble winning group, with PSG, Ajax and APOEL.
However, Luis Enrique's men should not be fearful following the draw in Monaco on Thursday evening. The treble winning side last season were seeded in Pot 1 and were in danger following whoever came out in top 2 with the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal and so on.
Bayer Leverkusen
The German side does have some bad memories when taking on the Blaugrana. In the 2011-12 Round of 16 match between these sides, Barcelona defeated Robin Dutt's Leverkusen at the BayArena 3-1 before the second leg at the Camp Nou were they were trashed 7-1 and saw five goals from the recently crowned UEFA Best Player in Europe Lionel Messi.
Fast forward to three years later and now under Roger Schmidt, with great players such as Karim Bellarabi, Son Heung-min (who is possibly off to Spurs) Hakan Çalhanoğlu and Stefan Kießling, they helped them finish fourth in the Bundesliga last season.
They won their place in the group stages after being drawn in the play-off round against Lazio, where they lost 1-0 in Rome in the first leg but helped reverse that by winning 3-0 at home in the BayArena. Their performance last season saw them finish second behind AS Monaco and were eliminated on penalties by Atletico Madrid. They will take on each other the 29th of September on Matchday Two and on the 9th of December in the last Matchday, home and away respectively.
Roma
For a second consecutive season, the side from the Eternal City finished second in Serie A behind Juventus and were drawn this time in a much easier group than the one compared last season being drawn in a group with the likes of CSKA Moscow, Manchester City and Bayern Munich where they finished third and went to the Europa League.
Only this time around, it's much easier for Rudi Garcia's side especially with the amount of business being made with the likes of Wojciech Szczęsny, Mohamed Salah, Edin Džeko, Antonio Rüdiger and Lucas Digne to add much depth to a side already oozing with talent and depth. They surely have proved to be an underrated side in Europe, but they now must be able to maintain this side and use it in good use without messing up heading into these matches in what is relatively an easy group.
They will take on each other the 16th of September on Matchday One and on the 24th of November on Matchday Five, away and home respectively.
BATE Borisov
The side from Belarus might be a familar side to Barcelona fans. For one in 2011-12, BATE Borisov were trashed at home 5-0 and then trashed at the Camp Nou by 4 goals to none, so this might come for bad déjà vu heading into this group drawn with them, the Italian and German side.
BATE are the only Belarusian team to have qualified for the group stage of the UEFA Champions League (2008–09, 2011–12, 2012–13, 2014–15 and 2015–16) and have won their right for the fifth time having won three qualifying rounds shortly after winning the Belarusian Premier League for the ninth straight time (Second qualifying round, Third qualifying round and the play-off round) to Irish side Dundalk F.C., Hungarian side Videoton and Serbian side FK Partizan in their respective rounds. Alyaksandr Yermakovich's men will look for a surprise but they are absolute minnows with these three other sides from Spain, Germany and Italy. Their performance last season saw them finish bottom of their group behind Porto, Shakhtar Donetsk and Athletic Bilbao.
They will take on each other the 20th of October on Matchday Three and on the 4th of November on Matchday Four, away and home respectively.
Prediction
An easy group for FC Barcelona when announced, on paper at least. However, we've seen sides that have caused surprises in the history of the UEFA Champions League who didn't make the big sides' runs too easy. The match against Roma will be probably the trickest as that may determine the winner of the group, as Bayer Leverkusen will look to challenge Roma, and BATE Borisov is only looking for a miracle.
Prediction: Barcelona, Roma, Bayer Leverkusen, BATE Borisov