PreviousLive Chronicle
Black night of Barcelona in Europe.
One more time.
It is no longer the Champions but the Europa League.
It does not matter.
As in Rome (2018), Liverpool (2019), Lisbon (2020) and Paris (2021), now in their stadium, Barça fell again in a continental competition.
Neither the confidence after 14 undefeated games, nor the warning that Eintracht (ninth in the Bundesliga) had given him in Frankfurt, worked as a stimulus for Barcelona, as muted in Xavi's team on the field as Barça fans in the stands by the massive presence of German supporters.
“It was a miscalculation and planning error that there were so many German fans.
You have to see what happened.
From the locker room we want to know what has happened”, explained Xavi.
“I have felt embarrassed with what I saw in the stands, I apologize, it has been very serious.
We are processing all the information, we will give explanations.
What happened today is not usual and should not have happened, we have studied the reasons and we will take measures”, added President Joan Laporta.
BCNBarcelona
two
Ter Stegen, Eric Garcia (Luuk de Jong, min. 69), Óscar Mingueza (Sergiño Dest, min. 61), Alba, Ronald Araújo, Pedri (Frenkie De Jong, min. 45), Gavi, Busquets, Aubameyang (Adama Traoré , min. 60), Ousmane Dembélé and Ferrán Torres (Depay, min. 79)
EFR Eintracht Fr.
3
Trapp, Almamy Touré (Makoto Hasebe, min. 98), Hinteregger, Obite Ndicka, Ansgar Knauff (Chandler, min. 98), Rode (Ajdin Hrustic, min. 79), Kristijan Jakic, Filip Kostic, Daichi Kamada, Jesper Lindstrom ( Jens Hauge, min. 79) and Santos Borré (Ragnar Ache, min. 89)
Goals
0-1 min.
3: Filip Kostic.
0-2 min.
35: Santos Borre.
0-3 min.
66: Philip Kostic.
1-3 min.
90: Busquets.
2-3 min.
100: Depay.
Referee
Artur Manuel Soares Dias
Yellow cards Eric Garcia (min. 2), Kristijan Jakic (min. 23), Gavi (min. 27), Ajdin Hrustic (min. 82), Ousmane Dembélé (min. 93), Obite Ndicka (min. 94), Ansgar Knauff (min. 94) and Trapp (min. 100)
Red cards Obite Ndicka (min. 99)
Barcelona returned last Thursday from Frankfurt with a sense of relief.
The azulgrana were bothered by the state of the grass — “the ground was not in good condition”, they complained — and the atmosphere in the Waldstadion stunned them.
“The pitch hurt us and the atmosphere too”, summed up Xavi, after the first leg match in Germany.
And he asked: "We need the Camp Nou to be a pressure cooker on the return leg."
The Barça coach gave one thing for sure, the green in his house was going to be in perfect condition.
So it was.
He was also expecting a swollen culé on fire with his boys.
In this case, he was not so lucky.
"Disappointing.
We discussed it with the players before going out on the pitch.
We hoped that the fans would support us.
We thank those who came, but it seemed like a final.
It seemed that half the tickets had been given out for each team.
The club is looking at what happened”, added Xavi.
The supporters of the German team exceeded 5% of the seats assigned by UEFA at the Camp Nou.
More information
Some 30,000 Eintracht Frankfurt fans take Barcelona
Europe is an ordeal for Barça
In the club's offices they estimate that there were about 20,000 fans who were at the Camp Nou.
And, according to
Mundo Deportivo
, at Barça they assure the Eintracht supporters they got the tickets through unofficial channels.
“Everyone has the right to sell their cards, but reality makes it very, very sad to see a Camp Nou with so many rival fans…” Complained Enric Masip, advisor to Joan Laporta on Twitter.
"We will have to be more strict and not allow certain things, I feel ashamed as a Barcelona fan," insisted Laporta.
German fans took over the Camp Nou.
An intimidation for the azulgrana, who denounced the presence of men in the women's toilets and mockery without the club's security being able to do anything about it.
Yes, on the other hand, during the first half, he acted as a wall between Barcelona and Eintracht fans to avoid a fight.
"We felt at home," goalkeeper Trapp said.
disappointment or failure
Eintracht's first kit is black (he used it in the first leg);
the second, red.
However, to visit Barcelona they chose to wear the third outfit: white.
And a white tide dawned on the streets of the Catalan capital.
First, nearly 30,000 Eintracht supporters filled the streets of the old city, then paraded down the Gran Vía, to finally appear at the Camp Nou.
From the outset, even the Barça anthem was half silenced in the face of the noise of the German fans.
“It has not helped us.
I told the players to try to pay attention to the game”, explained Xavi.
The handicap, in any case, was not in the stands, even though Barça's supporters left their seats during the first 10 minutes of the second half in protest at the number of German fans.
The problem for the azulgrana was on the field.
Because the white tide also took the green.
“The fans are no excuse.
Today we try.
The problem was football, we had possession, but we didn't know how to take advantage of it.
It's a fateful night, but we have hope.
I think we are on the way.
It's hard to change a game model.
They have made good use of their virtues.
We have not controlled the losses, we have not minimized them”, analyzed Xavi.
Eintracht, as in the first leg but now on their fast grass, stuck Barcelona.
It wasn't just noise in the stands, it was also rock and roll on the pitch.
Xavi knew that the team from Frankfurt was not just coming to the Camp Nou for a walk.
He had warned the boys about him on the way out, also on the way back.
“We haven't had a good tie”, said Xavi.
Araujo was not so understanding.
“It is a failure.
We wanted to win the Europa League”, summed up the Uruguayan centre-back.
“It's a disappointment, but we've tried.
I don't see it as a failure.
But if there is failure, there must also be learning.
This is Europe and this is difficult”, concluded Xavi.
With or without fans, with Valverde, Setién, Koeman or Xavi, there is no way that Barcelona will wake up in Europe.
You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on
and
, or sign up here to receive
our weekly newsletter
.