Bayern batter Barca Misery for Messi in humiliating 8-2 loss
They called it the end of an era, but that great era in Europe was over a long time ago for Barcelona, and, so, the worst part of it for a club dismantled piece by piece on an August night in Lisbon was that this team of theirs was supposed to be the future, too.
Either way, this was the end of something for Barcelona, and Lionel Messi, and as for their manager, Quique Setien, it would be right to say that he will be fortunate to be sold a ticket in the cheap seats of the Nou Camp when it reopens. It was not just a humiliation on the night – the first time they have conceded eight in any game since 1946 – it asked a question of what Barcelona are now, both on the pitch and as a club capable of competing in the elite post peak-messi.
The great man stared into the distance after the sixth, the seventh, the eighth went in, driven into the ground by a wonderful Bayern Munich team who were capable of all the great, high-tempo ruthlessness of the best Barcelona sides. Messi has been through some soaring highs with the club of his life, and he has had some lows too but it has never felt like he was in the wrong place.
This night was different, a great player in the dusk of his career stuck in a collapsing institution.
There was no better way of illustrating the totality of the Barcashambles than the origin and execution of the final three goals, two of them scored by, and the first of them assisted by, a Barcelona player, Philippe Coutinho.
The club’s most expensive signing, who turned out to be the wrong man in the wrong place, farmed out on loan and now back delivering the final blow to Barcelona on the worst night in their Champions League history. Architects of their own demise barely does it justice. As a team and as an organisation, Barcelona had failed.
The failure goes beyond this desperate night back over the years of bad choices in the transfer market and bad managerial appointments. Watching Setien, silent and helpless by the dugout, was to see a man who seemed to have little influence either way. This is how it is now at a
club that once venerated their coaches and were arguably the most influential in Europe over the last decade, in style at least. They were blown away in the Champions League quarter-finals like group stage cannon fodder, beaten in every one of the disciplines of highline, high-risk football that they themselves once patented.
Later, Gerard Pique would say that the club had reached “rock bottom”, described the defeat as “shameful” and called for “structural changes” although with the finances stretched to breaking point and the Covid era exposing historic frailties, there are no easy answers.
This Bayern side are an awesome force and this was a night when all the parts worked beautifully. Yet Bayern too were created in some way from the template of the great Barcelona teams of a decade previous. That was via Pep Guardiola, who may well have to find a way to beat them in the semi-final on Wednesday. He will see what was also clear about Bayern – that they have vulnerabilities, albeit those that Barcelona only briefly explored in the moments in the match when they managed to break the German side’s savage press.
This was, it should be said, a fabulous game of risky, relentless attacking football. There are many ways to win big games in Europe, dictated by the resources at one’s disposal, but there is no question that this is the best way. The might of Bayern flowed through every individual: the old penalty box scavenger Thomas Muller with two goals; the flying Alphonso Davies; the craft of Leon Goretzka. They would go into a semi-final against Manchester City as favourites, although not by much.
Bayern broke Barcelona early on, refusing to let them out. There was a dreamlike quality to it at times, as if the Catalans had to honour an old tradition even on this most destructive of nights. Their goalkeeper, Marc ter Stegen, would have the ball at his feet and not a compelling option in sight. Once he did release it, the Bayern pack was up and running and they isolated and harassed their opposition out of possession over and again.
That Barcelona passing carousel that establishes possession and territory was never permitted by Bayern to control the rhythm of the game for a moment. There was a Barcelona goal – a David Alaba own goal – when he misjudged a difficult Jordi Alba cross that had Luis Suarez waiting on the end of it. It came from the astonishingly high line that Bayern played which
would yield them many more rewards than setbacks.
At times, Jerome Boateng looked like he could be a weakness worth picking at, although Messi never really got going and only Suarez, scorer of Barcelona’s other goal, was ever a threat. At the other end of the pitch it was chaos. Some compared it to the Maracana carnage at the 2014 World Cup semi-final when Brazil flamed out against Germany, conceding seven. The goals were beautiful, Muller’s combination with Robert Lewandowski for the first. The relentless pursuit of Sergio Roberto to create the space for Ivan Perisic to score the second. Leon Goretzka’s magical first-time pass for Serge Gnabry for the third. Muller ghosting in front of Clement Lenglet to turn in Joshua Kimmich’s cross for the fourth.
That was the first course, 4-1 at half-time, and then came the Davies tornado down the left. The Canadian teenager was free on 63 minutes selling Nelson Semedo several bad options before wriggling past the full-back and releasing Kimmich to steer in the fifth. Then came substitute Coutinho to make one for Lewandowski and take another two for himself – rock bottom indeed, for Barcelona, and no clear way back.