Barcelona has “hit rock bottom” after the humiliating defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champion League quarter finals, the Spanish side’s defender Gerard Pique said.
The Catalan club were thrashed 8-2 in a one-sided match and had no answers to the German team’s energetic high-press tactics.
Barcelona Has Hit ‘The Rock Bottom’
Not even captain Lionel Messi, one of the best footballers in the world, could save Barcelona at the end of a season in which he has seemed increasingly agitated by the disarray.
“It’s a disastrous result,” Pique said after Friday’s loss dumped the five-time winners out of the tournament.
“An embarrassment, that’s the word. We have hit rock bottom.”
This was a night of utter misery in Lisbon in the pandemic-enforced single-game reformatting of a knockout stage that has never a seen a team lose so heavily in the Champions League era.
If it wasn’t embarrassing enough, Barcelona had to watch Philippe Coutinho, on loan to Bayern Munich from Barcelona, inflict the final blows and make the collapse all the more painful.
Coutinho Adds To The Misery
Manchester City or Lyon, you better brace yourselves.
The German champions were already cruising into the semifinals with a 5-2 lead when Coutinho was sent on for the final 15 minutes.
The Brazilian found time for an assist – pinging the ball to the head of the unmarked Robert Lewandowski – and then to score twice himself against a goalkeeper he knows so well.
The defeat was the heaviest Barcelona have suffered in Europe and puts more pressure on the club’s hierarchy.
“We need new blood,” Pique said, without discussing specifics. “There need to be changes at all levels.”
Barcelona’s Management Speaks
Quique Setien, who was hired in January to replace Ernesto Valverde, knows Pique’s assessment will resonate across the club.
“I’ve been here for just a few months,” he said. “If Gerard says that it’s time for big changes there’s going to be importance to his words. It’s time for us to review and take the decisions which are needed for the future.”
A future that probably won’t include Setien after accepting his “credibility” had been further diminished.
“Some decisions were already taken, and others will be taken as a result of this,” Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu said.
“From next week they’ll be worked through. Right now isn’t the time to make knee-jerk decisions, it’s time to think.”
The players were spared having to face any abuse from supporters in public due to the pandemic restricting access to the Lisbon stadiums. But on social media their feelings were there for all to see.
Muller- Man Of The Match
Muller was named the Man of the Match in an 8-2 annihilation of Barcelona that will go down in the history books, sending the Bavarians through to the Champions League semi-finals.
The 30-year-old opened the scoring after just four minutes with a brilliant left-footed strike and bagged his second just before half-time by arriving at the near post to finish.
Combine that with strikes from Ivan Perisic, Serge Gnabry, Joshua Kimmich, Robert Lewandowski and a brace from Philippe Coutinho for one of European football’s craziest ever nights.
However, back to Muller for a second, because the broadcasters present in Lisbon were unsurprisingly keen to catch up with the star performer after his incredible display.
Muller’s post-match interview
And if you’ve ever seen an interview from Muller in the past, you’ll know that he’s brilliant value for money and it was class seeing him stood as smug as can be in the mixed zone.
As well as making light of how much fun the Bayern players had in trouncing Barcelona, he also showed the mindset of a champion with how he’s planning to react to the 8-2 win.
Per the Independent, Muller told BT Sport: “In this moment, how I feel… it’s an incredible [feeling].
“Thank you for man of the match, but we have 12-15 players who deserve this as well. We worked so hard, had so much intensity for everyone out there. We had so much fun today together.
GIVEMESPORT’s Kobe Tong Says
Cor, you’ve just got to love Muller. I could watch his interviews all day long.
It’s impressive that he clearly gets in a few cheeky jibes, most notably passing comment about how much ‘fun’ Bayern had, while also showing an elite mentality by turning his attention to the semi-finals.
Making the point that it can be harder to maintain focus after a massive win is incredibly shrewd and Barcelona are actually a fantastic case in point when it comes to the Champions League.
It’s easy to forget that the Blaugrana were tidily eliminated from Europe 3-0 on aggregate against Juventus in 2016/17 despite having completed the legendary PSG comeback the round before.
But as for Muller, his own tactic clearly works because after helping Germany to a 7-1 thrashing of Brazil six years ago, he just happened to back that up by winning the World Cup in his next game.
Brace Yourselves For What’s Coming
Manchester City or Lyon, you better brace yourselves.
“Right now we feel enormous frustration and all we can do is make conclusions and think about the future. Barca is a club that is so great that this will cause us a lot of damage and obviously some things will have to change.
“The truth is this is a tremendously painful defeat.”
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