FC Barcelona: Out against Eintracht Frankfurt Barça broke – FOOTBALL
April 14, 2022 shook FC Barcelona for good. It was to be the day the club looked to get one step closer to their final dream of the season. It was the day that Barça disgraced themselves on and off the pitch – and apparently suffered more damage than initially expected.
The fact that the 2: 3 against Eintracht Frankfurt not only means the end of the Europa League quarter-finals was shown last Sunday.
The team coached by Xavi (42) lost 1-0 to Rayo Vallecano. Alvaro’s early goal (7th) was enough for the guests, who had only won one of their last eight away games, for three points. After that, the Catalans desperately bit their teeth, found against the bulwark of Table-11. no solutions.
With the unexpected bankruptcy against the Madrid suburban club, FC Barcelona also set a negative record: Barça had never experienced three home defeats in a row – between Frankfurt and Vallecano there was a 0-1 draw against Cadiz.
None of this would be noticeable if the team hadn’t played rushing football against Eintracht in the weeks leading up to the game. The high point of the winning streak was the 4-0 win at Real Madrid in the Clasico. The big rival didn’t stand a chance and was shown off by Barça in phases.
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Despite the big gap, there were even slight hopes of winning the championship afterwards. With the most recent appearances, the team has nipped this in the bud again. In the deepest five games, it’s now just a matter of not wasting the six-point lead in fifth place. At least the renewed participation in the Champions League would then be secured.
“I’m wrong as a coach, especially when it comes to motivation. I knew that the players couldn’t be motivated enough. I can say what I did wrong, but not what the others did wrong,” Xavi said after the recent bankruptcy, not sparing with self-criticism.
The air seems to be gone a month before the end of the season, although the pros had claimed after the Frankfurt game that they wanted to make amends in the following games. But: The defensive is always vulnerable to a goal, and up front Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (32) and his teammates seem to have shot their powder.
In March, the team still scored 2.8 goals per game, a month later the average is only 1.14. The fans, who were so hurt when 30,000 Eintracht supporters made the Euro League game a home game for the Bundesliga club, are anything but spoiled right now.
On top of that, the press put their finger in the wound the day after the 0-1 draw against Vallecano.
Photo: Joan Monfort/AP
“SPORT” headlines: “Another April to forget” and writes: “The painful end in Europe, with a Camp Nou full of German fans, was the beginning of the ordeal.”
“When you win, everything is wonderful. But it’s in these moments that personality shows,” Xavi is now trying to grab his players by the honor. In the next two games against Mallorca (May 1) and Real Betis (May 8), FC Barcelona could qualify for the Champions League despite the recent negative experiences.
The club would at least avert the worst case scenario. On the other hand, it would quickly be exaggerated to speak of a minimum goal being achieved…