Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez vowed to return the Spanish giants to the pinnacle of European soccer after they crashed out of the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday with a 3-0 defeat at Bayern Munich.
Five-time European champions Barcelona failed to reach the last 16 of the competition for the first time in 18 years.
Goals by Thomas Mueller and Leroy Sane gave Bayern a 2-0 halftime cushion in falling snow at the Allianz Arena, which was devoid of spectators due to a high number of COVID-19 cases in Bavaria.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Teenager Jamal Musiala grabbed Bayern’s third goal after the break to seal Barcelona’s fate.
“I’m angry. I don’t like that this is our reality now. We start a new era from here — to work hard and get back in the Champions League,” Xavi said.
Bayern had qualified for the knockout stages as Group E winners. They join Liverpool and Ajax with a perfect record of six victories from six games in the group stage.
However, for the first time since the 2003-2004 season, Barcelona are not to be in the draw for the last 16.
SL Benfica’s 2-0 win at home to Dynamo Kiev means that Barcelona finish third and drop into the UEFA Europa League.
It was almost eight years to the day since Bayern lost a home Champions League game in the group phase, and the Bundesliga leaders were in no mood to be generous.
Xavi, 41, who took charge of struggling Barcelona four weeks ago, has had back-to-back defeats after his first loss as head coach against Real Betis Balompie last weekend.
“We start from scratch. Unfortunately, we are in the Europa League, which is not the place for us,” Xavi said. “We will work hard to put Barcelona back in the right place. We have many things to correct.”
“We need to win the Europa League and recover the points in La Liga,” Xavi said. “We have had some injuries, maybe we can sign some more players, but we start from zero.”
Bayern were not even at full strength. With Joshua Kimmich quarantining after testing positive for COVID-19 and Leon Goretzka injured, 18-year-old Musiala played out of position alongside Corentin Tolisso in defensive midfield.
After the final whistle, Mueller backed Xavi to turn Barcelona around.
“When you look at the [Barcelona] team, they are good players, they have everything they need,” Mueller said. “We know things aren’t going so well behind the scenes and I had the feeling they couldn’t find the intensity they needed, which helped our cause.”
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