Barcelona FC Tragic Slide Continues Following Benfica Thrashing in …

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Barcelona FC Tragic Slide Continues Following Benfica Thrashing in ...

Just over a fortnight on from the 3-0 humiliation at the hands of Bayern Munich, Benfica swept aside Ronald Koeman’s team by the same scoreline in Lisbon Friday night.

Five-time champions Real Madrid are off to their worst Champions League start ever and currently sit dead last in Group E, with elimination from the competition a real possibility for the first time since the 2003-04 season.

Another sad factoid of this continuous Barça tragedy is that Lionel Messi, who just this week exploded into life at Paris Saint-Germain with the kind of stunning goal he so often showered the blaugrana with, is still the most recent Barcelona player to score in the competition.

Barcelona FC Tragic Slide Continues Following Benfica Thrashing in ...

An additional burden is placed on Koeman in the event of a loss. The Dutchman was the hero who finally ended Barcelona’s long quest for the European Cup when he scored the game-winner in 1992, but his current squad is a far way from the grandeur that his former club enjoyed.

Koeman said to the Press after the Game, “I’m not going to Dispute with the Level of my Team.”

There’s no purpose in making comparisons to past Barcelona squads. That’s as clear as water. \s“ It is not appropriate for me to comment on Koeman. We’ve to maintain preventing, keep together and beat this case. We will merely escape this through tough exertion and being together as a workforce.”

Within three minutes in Lisbon, everything was already written in stone: Darwin Nez scurried behind Barcelona’s high line far too easily before cutting in and slipping a low attempt past Marc-Andre ter Stegen.

Luuk de Jong was granted a golden opportunity to equalise later within the half when his namesake squared the ball for an open objective, but the Dutchman inexplicably fluffed his shot With the ball heading nearer to the nook flag than it did to the web.

Rafa Silva added a second earlier than Núñez transformed a penalty for his brace, setting the consequence past doubt with just over ten minutes to play.

But Barcelona however discovered time to inflict further pain on themselves – summer time signing Eric García despatched off for a second yellow card within the closing levels.

Barcelona, mimicking their performance from two weeks ago against Bayern, finished the game with a slew of underage players. Before Garcia’s unexpected departure, the median age was just over 22.

Many of these younger players, none more so than the exceptionally talented Ansu Fati and Ronald Arajo, now have the responsibility of attempting to lift the club out of this present low, a task made much more difficult by Barcelona’s catastrophic financial position.

Conclusion

President Joan Laporta disclosed the “extremely alarming” financial situation of the club last month, saying that Barcelona owed more than $1.5 billion and had a negative net price of $515 million.

Already in the third round of the group, Barça’s October 20 home game against Dynamo Kyiv is a must-win.

It is unclear if Koeman will be available for Kyiv’s visit to the Camp Nou, but Barcelona’s escalating troubles are obvious.