Thierry Henry and Jamie Carragher both reckon that Barcelona lost their heads during their must-win match against Inter Milan.
The Blaugrana needed to beat Inter to turn the tide on their Champions League fortunes, but a thrilling 3-3 draw at a sold-out Camp Nou leaves them on the brink of dropping out of the competition at the group stage for the second successive season.
Unless Group C minnows Viktoria Plzen pull off a shock win when they face Inter at the San Siro in a fortnight's time, Barcelona will've already been demoted to the Europa League before a ball is even kicked in their clash with already-qualified Bayern Munich.
Facing a plight that'll reportedly cost the Catalan club an eye-watering €21million, Barca were the architects of their own downfall on Wednesday - at least according to Henry and Carragher. Analysing the rollercoaster of a game, the pair of pundits cited Barcelona's poor temperament for allowing Inter come from behind in the second half and take the lead twice thereafter, forcing star striker Robert Lewandowski to come up with two late equalisers.
"I just want to say something for people to understand," Henry, who spent three years at the Camp Nou and memorably lifted the Champions League trophy after their 2009 triumph over Manchester United, began on CBS Sports. "They took the game, Barcelona, to an emotional game too early. You don't go crazy - still 30 minutes to go - and make it like a crazy game yet.
"It's still 1-1. In the last five minutes, what we've seen in the last 10 minutes you go and try to win it because you want to take control of the qualification. They made it a cup tie and an emotional game way too early. And you expect [Gerard] Pique and [Sergio] Busquets to go like 'guys [calm down] it's still the group stage this is not you dying tonight.'"
Carragher also singled out the Blaugrana's two most experienced players, who each boast three Champions League winners' medals, for their lacklustre showings. "Busquets, Pique - two of the greatest players we've ever seen for Barcelona and of this generation - they needed to settle everybody down. They didn't need it to become an end-to-end game," the Liverpool legend explained.
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"What they needed to do for the next 10 or 15 minutes was not (try and) score, was to make sure Inter Milan didn't score, and then eventually, push Inter Milan back and keep sustaining attacks and think we need one goal.
"I put myself in that position if I was playing for Liverpool, at Anfield. If you needed one goal with half an hour to go, you'd back yourselves to get the one goal. Make sure you don't concede and the game became too open, too spread, and it became too emotional."
It seems that Barcelona manager Xavi Hernandez agrees with Henry and Carragher's assessment, as the Spanish tactician damningly claimed that his team "don't deserve" a place in the knockout stages. "I'm very disappointed, sad, frustrated, I'm angry." Xavi fumed post-match. "I have to be self-critical, we don't deserve to play in the Champions League. It hurts me, but it's the truth.
"I apologise to the fans because we made the mistakes, we had set our minds not to fail, and we have failed, so we have to apologise to the fans, who have been wonderful. I want to tell them that we will work to turn this situation around and win titles."
