THE crown this season slipped through the cracks for Barcelona and Lionel Messi did not take kindly to this. The Blaugrana captain gave a rare interview following Barcelona’s 2-1 defeat to Osasuna on Thursday night and slammed his team for being “weak” in their title defence.
Read: ‘Real Madrid striker deserves 2020 Ballon d’Or’
The Catalan giants’ shock defeat alongside Real Madrid’s victory of the same scoreline over Villarreal sealed ‘Los Blancos’ 34th La Liga title. Pouring his heart out after the game, Messi let Spanish media know his disappointment in his side’s showing this season, and emotionally admitted the club are not where they want to be right now.
The 33-year-old said, per Daily Mail: “This game represents the entire year. We have been an erratic and weak team. Madrid did its part by winning all its matches, which is impressive, but we also helped them to win this league. We have to be critical of how we have played, starting with the players, and the rest of the club.
A critical Messi added: “We have lost because of our mistakes and not because of Madrid’s successes, as many say. The feeling on this team is that it tries, but that it cannot get the job done. Today, in the first half, they [Osasuna] were better than we were and it seems we have to fall behind to react like we tried to do in the second half. We are going to have to change a lot if we want to do something…”
Despite the six-time Ballon d’Or winner’s sublime free-kick to level the scores after Osasuna took a shock lead, Roberto Torres’ injury-time winner condemned Quique Setien’s side to their sixth defeat of the season, one in which they were constantly behind the eight ball. Captain Messi, despite his side still being in contention in the 2019/19 Champions League – set to resume on August 7 – was blunt about their chances there.
I said it some time ago, that playing like this we had [sic] no chance of winning the Champions League, and it turns out we didn’t even have enough to win La Liga,’ spat the Argentine maestro.
“We need to take a breather, let some air in, and clean our minds of all that has happened since December. Playing like this we will lose against Napoli. We have to start from zero in the Champions League and blame ourselves for what went wrong.”
What are your thoughts on the season which Barcelona have had and their chances of winning the Champions League? Leave your thoughts below.