Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez claimed that the mobile support of Eintracht Frankfurt contributed to Barcelona’s loss at home in the second leg of the European League.
Barcelona and Eintracht Frankfurt played a very entertaining match as the German side showed an attacking prowess that Xavi could not overcome, leading to Barcelona’s exit from Europe for the second time this season.
The loss 3-4 on aggregate beat the Catalan club, which was unable to provide any goal in its attack against the strong defense of Frankfurt. The German side spent its time carefully and chose the Barcelona defense with an attacking counter-performance that was enjoyed by the neutral and the Frankfurt fans.
Barcelona coach Xavi finally lost his first game in 16 matches since taking charge of the team in November, ending the longest unbeaten streak in Europe’s top five leagues this season.
Speaking after the match, Xavi admitted that while his team lacked some of the fighting and killing instinct they had shown in previous matches, the Frankfurt fans were the catalyst for his team’s loss at the Camp Nou.
Barcelona was forced to suspend the sale of match tickets on Wednesday after an estimated 30,000 visiting team fans obtained tickets. This is the largest solo travel crowd for any game in recent memory.
As a result, the match looked like a home match for the Germans, who put up a white wall that almost drowned in the colors of the Blaugrana at the 90,000-seat Camp Nou.
“I was expecting 70,000 Barcelona fans to fill up at the Camp Nou, but it wasn’t,” Xavi said of Frankfurt’s overwhelming presence at the Camp Nou.
“[The presence of German fans] It was a miscalculation and the club is reviewing it. It looked more like a final than a home match.
“Honestly, I’m disappointed and so are the players. We needed Joe and he wasn’t there. We were expecting more fans to support us.
“The atmosphere in the stands didn’t help us, that’s clear. It affected us and we weren’t okay, that’s no excuse because on the field we weren’t good enough.”
Confirming the latest statement, the former Barcelona captain, after congratulating his opponents on the victory, stated that his team’s failure to focus on their transition from defense to attack cost them the match.
“It’s a very big disappointment. We have to congratulate Frankfurt because they deserved to qualify, but we weren’t very good,” Xavi added.
“We didn’t know how to create chances and attack, we didn’t play like we did in our last matches. It was one hit after another for us.
“We didn’t focus on defensive transitions. Every time they got to our goal, it looked like they were going to score.
“We made a lot of mistakes. Penalty kick [in the first half] It was a mistake, the third target was a mistake. We have to learn from these mistakes and criticize ourselves.
“This is a disappointment for me but let me say that this is part of the process we are going through. I think we have changed a lot of things since November. Defeat is part of football, despite what happened today we must continue to believe” .
Xavi and Barcelona will now focus on taking the top four places in La Liga, having been knocked out in all the other leagues.
La Liga struggling Cadiz CF are their next opponent on Monday, April 18, before they travel to the Basque Country to face Real Sociedad where they hope to consolidate their current position in second place, which would be a huge win for the team given the way they started. season.
