FC Barcelona face Bayer Leverkusen in Champions League 2012

Last year FC Barcelona won the Champions League for the fourth time in its history and the third time since 2006. The Catalan club first won the trophy at London's famous Wembley Stadium in 1992 when the so called "Dream Team" assembled by Johann Cruyff beat Italians Sampdoria 1-0.

The goal was scored from a free kick by Ronald Koeman in extra time and in the squad was one Pep Guardiola, now the coach who has created his own dream team based on the "total football" introduced by Cruyff.

Barcelona's second Champions League title was won against Arsenal in 2006 when Frank Rijkaard was coach; but it is Guardiola who has really built on the work of Rijkaard and won the title in 2009 and 2011, both times against Manchester United.

While Manchester United are already out of the 2012 competition after not progressing beyond the group stages, Barcelona will face Bayer Leverkusen in the next round; in the group stage they played Milan who they drew against in September at home and went on to beat 3-2 in the return match in Italy. You can buy Barcelona tickets for all home matches including against Bayer Leverkusen from Simply Barcelona Tickets.

They also played Bate Borisov who put up little resistance against the might of Barcelona, who beat them 5-0 away and 4-0 at home; and Viktoria Plzen, who Barcelona first beat 2-0 at home and then 4-0 away. The results left them at the top of their group, with Milan in second place and both teams go through.

This year Barcelona's main rival so far is Real Madrid, who they have a longstanding and extremely bitter rivalry. The arrival of Jose Mourinho at Madrid has ensured that the rivalry has been really turned up, but so far Barcelona has usually come out winning. Last year Madrid lost to Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final, who beat them 3-1 on aggregate.

And this year Mourinho has set his mind on beating Barcelona whenever he can. If they face each other in the Champions League he will need to overcome a massively talented rival whose home-grown talent is usually too much for his own team. Only time will tell.

In the next round against Bayer Leverkusen is to be played in February and March. The first leg is in Germany on Valentine's Day, while the return is on March 7th. Meanwhile Real Madrid will play CSKA Moskow from Russia.