Barcelona awoke Wednesday to questions of whether the demise of one of football's all-time greatest clubs had begun.
After winning two of the last three Champions League titles, defending champion Barcelona was eliminated from the competition Tuesday following a 2-2 draw with 10-man Chelsea in the second leg of the semifinals.
While Barcelona's best attributes of possession, quick-touch passing and overall shots were on show, the club failed to score enough goals to reach yet another European Cup final.
And maybe worse, the exit comes only four days after a 2-1 loss to Real Madrid that essentially dropped Barcelona out of contention for the Spanish league title.
With coach Pep Guardiola's future to be determined in the coming days, newspaper La Vanguard summed up the mood in the Catalan capital with the headline "Funeral at the Camp Nou.''
Most of Spain's sports newspaper rallied around Barcelona's play, with El Mundo Deportivo among those that labeled the result "unjust,'' but Chelsea's players were not buying into such an analogy after playing for more than 50 minutes with 10 men following John Terry's red card.
"We came here and we scored goals and in the first leg we scored as well,'' Chelsea striker Didier Drogba said. "Without being arrogant, we deserved to win.''
Barcelona's poor effort capped a miserable week for Lionel Messi, which showed the club thrives or dies off the boot of the Argentina forward.
Messi missed a penalty that would likely have swung the series in Barcelona's favor and the world player of the year was held scoreless in both legs and against Madrid. Barcelona failed to win in three consecutive games for the first time since 2009, and the only remaining consolation for the team is next month's Copa del Rey final against Athletic Bilbao.
But the domestic cup will provide little consolation to a team that has won 13 trophies under Guardiola.
"I don't even know what I feel right now. I try to figure out what to say when looking at the team, about what we did wrong to not reach the final and I can't think of anything,'' Guardiola said. "From opening day I've transmitted this crazy theme of 'You have to go out and attack, attack, attack,' and there are moments when we don't know when to pause. Maybe it's a lesson to learn for the future. We have to find the way to attack better.''
Guardiola certainly missed injured striker David Villa against Chelsea, but he also left Daniel Alves and Pedro Rodriguez on the bench, with Alves replacing Gerard Pique only after the Spain defender left with a concussion midway through the first half. Guardiola has recently preferred young wingers Isaac Cuenca and Cristian Tello over his more experienced players, while the team continues to have a tough time breaking down defenses that crowd the area, as Inter Milan did two years ago to also deny Barcelona a spot in the final.
While Barcelona enjoyed 72 percent of the possession, it's 22 overall shots on Tuesday dwarfed the actual number it had on target: five compared to Chelsea's three. Barcelona had 46 shots over two legs with nine on target, while Chelsea advanced 3-2 on aggregate after taking better advantage of its four shots on goal in the entire series."That wasn't beautiful football,'' Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard said after his team stretched its unbeaten run over the Catalans to seven games to reach its second final since 2008. "Football's not just about the beautiful stuff, it's about doing the other side and we done that.''
Source: Indianexpress News
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