Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez admitted, on Wednesday, that his team cannot currently compete with teams such as Bayern Munich and Inter Milan. Xavi's comments came after Barcelona lost 3-0 at home to Bayern Munich, in the penultimate fifth round of the Champions League group stage, the competition that Barcelona had already bid farewell to.
This is what Xavi told Movistar Plus:
• "We have to face our new reality. Today we did not present the appropriate level of competition. I think the psychological aspect affected us because we entered the match after we had already exited the competition."
• "We started the season with very high expectations, but we competed in a very complex group and did not manage to reach the level necessary to compete with them. It is a huge disappointment."
Bayern leads Group C with 15 points, 5 points ahead of Inter Milan, who also reached the Round of 16 after beating Viktoria Plzen 4-0 earlier on Wednesday. The victory of the Italian team was the result that ousted Barcelona from the group stage for the second year in a row.
Since winning the Champions League last time in 2015, Barcelona reached the semi-finals once in 2019, and lost 2-8 to Bayern in the quarter-finals in 2020, and bid farewell to the competition from the round of 16 against Paris Saint-Germain in 2021, then failed to overcome the role of Groups in the last two editions of the tournament.
Barcelona were eliminated from the tournament last season, from the group stage, after the departure of Lionel Messi to Paris Saint-Germain, and a financial crisis that led to the resignation of the club's entire board of directors.
But this season, with high-profile signings and massive spending including Robert Lewandowski, Rafinha and Jules Conde, better results were expected. The Catalan team has won only one of the 5 matches it has played in the tournament so far, and will move to the European League after finishing the group stage in third place for the second time in a row.
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