The postmortem from Gerard Pique was as brutal as the 8-2 humiliation dished to Barcelona by Bayern Munich.
“It’s a disastrous result,” the defender said. “An embarrassment — that’s the word.”
It has been 74 years since Barcelona conceded as many goals in one match.
Photo: AFP
“We have hit rock bottom,” Pique said in a television interview on the field after Friday’s loss dumped the five-time winners out of the UEFA Champions League in the quarter-finals.
Unlike the capitulations in the previous two seasons — against AS Roma and Liverpool — there was no first-leg lead to throw away.
Not even Lionel Messi could save Barcelona at the end of a season in which he has seemed increasingly agitated by the disarray.
This was a night of misery in Lisbon in the pandemic-enforced single-game reformatting of a knockout stage that has never seen a team lose so heavily in the Champions League era.
If it was not embarrassing enough, Barcelona had to watch Philippe Coutinho inflict the final blows and make the collapse all the more painful.
The German champions were already cruising into the semi-finals 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 well.
Goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen is still Coutinho’s teammate.
The 160 million euro (US$190 million) forward remains not only Barcelona’s record signing, but still their player. He is only on loan at Bayern for this season after struggling to settle at the parent club that he joined from Liverpool in 2018 as the supposed heir to Andres Iniesta.
He never even had a chance to work under Quique Setien, who was hired in January to replace Ernesto Valverde.
It is difficult to see Setien getting a full season in charge after Barcelona finished a campaign trophyless for the first time since 2008, but Barcelona has not won the Champions League since Luis Enrique swept five trophies in 2015.
“We need new blood,” Pique said, without discussing specifics.
“There need to be changes at all levels,” he added.
The players accept culpability at the end of a season when they finished second in La Liga behind Real Madrid and only reached the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey.
“Today showed that we have a lot of problems in the team,” Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong said. “We know we have to make a lot of changes.”
The players were spared having to face any abuse from supporters in public.
“It’s difficult to take also for the fans,” De Jong said. “Sorry to them.”
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