DBasia.news – The 2022-2023 season has just begun but Barcelona are already under pressure, especially for the manager Xavi, even more after they were confirmed to have lost in the group stage of the 2022-2023 Champions League.
The 0-3 defeat to Bayern Munich at Camp Nou in match five of Group C of the Champions League, Thursday (27/10), has confirmed Barcelona as third in the group and dropped to play in the Europa League.
Barcelona only collected four points behind Bayern (15 points) and Inter Milan (10 points). Xavi has also failed to reach the target of qualifying for the Champions League group stage and competing competitively, although Barcelona’s chances are still wide open to win at the end of the season.
Barcelona are still competing in LaLiga, Copa del Rey and Europa League. However, the spotlight and rumors of Xavi’s dismissal, who is actually a Barcelona legend, are also widely circulated. Regarding this, Barcelona president Joan Laporta opened up on the matter.
Laporta voiced his support for Xavi to continue his work. He also emphasized that Barcelona’s project was still ongoing after the massive spending of players in the summer of 2022.
“The result is a shame, but you can’t blame the players or the coach for anything. We have to look forward because we have LaLiga and other competitions left to look forward to,” Laporta said.
“This is a young project where from the start we knew we were going to have ups and downs. The league remains and we have to show that we continue. La Liga is important and we are in a race. The message is to look ahead. It’s already happened.”
Xavi also admitted that Barcelona are currently not ready to compete competitively in the Champions League, especially with a different level of play against Bayern.
“We have to face reality. I said that we have to improve through hard hitting, we have to keep going. We said goodbye to the Champions League, a blow that forced us to criticize ourselves,” explained Xavi.
“I understand that people talk about failure, but we have analyzed everything. We’ve made a lot of mistakes, but in other games we’ve been competing for something more.”
“Barca didn’t compete today, we didn’t reach Bayern’s level. Bayern were better today, they played more intensely and aggressively. The fact is knowing that we were knocked out of the Champions League before the game against Bayern has affected us a lot.”