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.”
A seven-year-old horse had to be euthanized on Friday after breaking its back on the final fence of a Grand National steeplechase race that it won despite sustaining the serious injury. It follows the death of four horses at the Cheltenham Festival last month — including one after the prestigious Gold Cup. Gold Dancer was competing in the Mildmay Novices’ Chase during Ladies Day at Aintree’s Grand National Festival. The horse managed to cross the finish line approximately four lengths ahead of runner-up Regent’s Stroll. “The winner of our second race of the day, Gold Dancer, was pulled up after
Hans Niemann declares he would become a “stone cold killer” in a Netflix documentary released on Tuesday about his feud with five-time classical world champion Magnus Carlsen, a pledge that injects new edge into the lingering fallout from the cheating scandal that shook elite chess. “I’m gonna be a stone cold killer the rest of my life,” the US’ Niemann says in the film. “I’m going to become the best player in the world, and no one is going to believe that now, but this clip will play over and over again in 10 years — just wait.” “I just
OBJECTIVE REACHED: ’Now for us, it’s about getting healthy, making sure everybody is ready to go, and we can ramp up,’ the Atlanta Hawks’ C.J. McCollum said after the game The Atlanta Hawks on Friday secured an NBA playoff berth with a 124-102 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers as the Boston Celtics locked up the Eastern Conference second seed with a lopsided win of their own. C.J. McCollum scored a game-high 29 points for the Hawks, who came into the contest at sixth in the East and still in danger of falling into the play-in tournament that would see the seventh-through 10th-placed teams battle for the last two playoff berths in each conference. Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Jalen Johnson scored 18 points apiece, and Dyson Daniels added a triple-double of 13
The Daredevils yesterday took eight catches in the final as they eked out a victory in the Taiwan Cricket Triangular Tournament against PCCT at Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei’s Songshan District. PCCT’s batting lineup collapsed after they asked the Daredevils to bowl in the T20 decider of the weekend tournament that also involved the Formosa Cricket Club. PCCT were bundled out for 76 in 16.2 overs against a disciplined Daredevils attack. Shahzad Khan was the top scorer in the innings with 21, but he was among those who offered chances to the fielders. Shane Ferreira and Jason Cameron took three wickets each, with
RSS