Barcelona’s early exit from this season’s UEFA Champions League, in the opinion of the manager, Xavi Hernandez, was due to errors and bad luck, than to the team’s attitude or skill.
While the Spanish team has had a fairly better domestic season thus far, their European campaign did not have a similar run, and their elimination from the competition was settled before they had even played their fifth game.
Bayern Munich and Inter were in Xavi’s team’s difficult group, and Barca was unable to overcome either of both. They were eliminated from this year’s campaign as a result of losing both of their games to the German champions and losing on the road to Inter before drawing at home.
Yet, Xavi is optimistic about their progress because he believes it was poor finishing, rather than lack of quality that was the cause. He said: “It’s not a problem of attitude. It’s our mistakes, our footballing maturity, knowing how to compete better, facing the competition with more faith… it’s a process. We lack maturity. We have a lot of youngsters and we’ve had the worst Champions League group in years.
“Last year the feeling is that we didn’t give it our all football-wise, and this year I think it’s been mistakes. The group was strong and we weren’t up to the task. Now, we have a better squad and we have given a better image in Europe, but we weren’t up to the task. It’s a matter of time.”
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
