Barcelona’s players sat beneath the stand and watched their Champions League campaign come to an end, then ran out on to the pitch and demonstrated some of the reasons why. Already eliminated when this game began, witnessing any last, tiny hope extinguished on the television where Internazionale beat Viktoria Plzen in the early kick-off, they were not even able to have a bit of fun before bidding farewell, nor leave much to remember them by. Instead, they head into the Europa League with a 3-0 defeat, their sixth in a row against Bayern Munich. Aggregate score: 19-2.
Who knows: maybe if it had mattered, it would have been different. Maybe watching their own execution immediately beforehand was not the greatest idea, either: “Being knocked out before the game affected us,” Xavi said. And this is Bayern too, a “super team” in his words. But ultimately Barcelona brought about their own demise, left feeling this level is still beyond them, so soft is their underbelly. “We’re a young team and we don’t yet have enough to compete in the Champions League,” Pedri said.
