Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez has stressed that his team needs to leave the disappointment of the Champions League behind as soon as possible and focus on improving its performance to compete for the Spanish League and European League titles.
The coach did not make any excuses after Barcelona lost 3-0 at home to Bayern Munich in the third group last night, after playing the match after his team had already been eliminated from the competition after Inter Milan’s 4-0 victory over Victoria Plzen earlier last night.
Barcelona won one of their five group matches and will continue in the European League after finishing third in their group for the second year in a row.
Xavi told a press conference at the Camp Nou: This is our reality and we have to face it. Maybe that’s what we needed, to take a hit in order to grow.
“Today it was already over, and it was too late to do anything,” he continued. The main reason we got into this position is because of our mistakes in previous games, our failure to be decisive in attack.
“We leave with a really bad feeling but we need to start over to fight for the remaining titles.”
The defeat was another blow to Barcelona after they lost the top spot in the local league after losing 3-1 to Real Madrid in a derby last week.
This came after the 3-3 draw with Inter Milan at the Camp Nou, which made the Catalan team on the verge of exit from the Champions League.
Xavi said: “That match against Inter was the most influential on us and on me personally, when we lost control of our destiny, and I think it was really tough on our team.”
And he continued: But we have to stay together. Our fans were fantastic tonight, it was great to see over 85,000 spectators at the Camp Nou supporting us until the end. But we did not do what pleased them on the field.
And he concluded: There are still other championships to compete for. It’s a big blow but we need to criticize ourselves to be able to win those titles.