Sleep must have been difficult to find last night for the Barça players. A few hours after their elimination in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, the disappointment was still in their minds, just like when they woke up this morning, according to the Catalan press. It must be said that the scenario added a layer. After their first-leg victory at the Parc des Princes (3-2) and the opening score last night in the 12th minute, Xavi’s protégés had taken a two-goal lead over the entire confrontation.
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Then unfortunately, the expulsion of Ronald Araujo after half an hour of play changed everything. Reduced to ten, the Barcelonans logically suffered the encounter against eleven revolting Parisians. Dembélé equalized before the break then Vitinha gave PSG the lead with a great strike. Joao Cancelo conceded a very avoidable penalty which Mbappé transformed, before the latter scored a double at the end of added time, synonymous with qualification and a new spanking (4-1, like that of 2021) inflicted on Barça at home.
Read Thierry Henry accuses Barça of being afraid against PSG
Barça believed in it
The C1 dream is gone. Proof that this elimination hurts a lot, Xavi completely lost his position on his bench at the hour mark. He ended up being excluded, like one of his deputies a few minutes later. According to Sport, looks were wild in the locker room after the match, exhausted from fatigue and above all disappointment. The Champions League was the only way to save this season and the qualification against Naples had given a lot of confidence to a group which had begun to believe in a possible final success.
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For the local media, the Blaugranas displayed too much confidence, not to mention being too sure of themselves either, especially after the victory of the first leg. When they appeared in front of the press, Marc-André ter Stegen, Frenkie de Jong and Ilkay Gündogan displayed crestfallen expressions, whispering about the end of the Xavi era, a coach they also have a little disavowed in their post-match statements. If for the coach, the referee had too great an influence on the match, the three players spoke of individual and collective errors.
It’s also the end of the Xavi era
Even the reaction of the German midfielder, who criticized Araujo’s far too risky decision in the position of last defender on Barcola, was well received by a locker room aware of having missed out at certain moments of the meeting. With this elimination, the whole end of the season looks sad, with no big objective to define other than getting 2nd place in La Liga to compete in the Spanish Super Cup. A very meager consolation prize, especially since by missing out on qualification yesterday, Barça also gave up on next year’s Club World Cup…
Pub. 04/17/2024 6:03 p.m. Updated 04/17/2024 6:45 p.m.
2024-04-17 16:03:19
#Barcelona #locker #room #destroyed
