“Humiliated”, “Mudo”, “Debacle”, “ko” are some of the headlines used by the Catalan news media to describe the harsh defeat suffered by Barça against Real Madrid on a full moon night but in which the azulgranas were eaten by wolves dressed in white.
Barça was looking forward to reaching its eleventh Cup final in the last fourteen seasons. The 0-4 loss at the Camp Nou not only meant the end of Barcelona’s dream of winning the League and Cup double this season, but also staged the worst night experienced by Xavi Hernández against a Spanish rival. The team with the fewest goals in the League received a beating that did not fit into any of the scripts planned before the match. The advantage of having won the first leg at the Bernabeu (0-1) nor the advantage of playing in front of their fans (more than 94,000 spectators) allowed Barça to demonstrate the superiority they display in the league championship.
It was a painful night for Barça, one of those that are not easily forgotten, nor do they have a possible excuse. An enormous sadness invades the culé social mass, which expected to vent all the accumulated rage with what they consider an attack on the institution through the Negreira case. But if the public filled the stadium excited to live a night of partying, they left it feeling that they had witnessed a nightmare.
The night served once again to confirm the weaknesses of a team that bares all its weaknesses against the strongest rivals. The defense that seemed the strongest, this time opened wide to allow four penetrations in which Vinicius once again played the role of bad boy and Benzema, the relentless executioner with a hat-trick. Quite the opposite of what was seen on the Barça side: Ter Stegen couldn’t do anything in any of the white goalscoring actions and Lewandowski was more of a spectator of the game than the goal scorer that was expected.
The review of Madrid to Barça will be difficult to digest. Once again during the week the return of Messi will stand out again, chanted on Wednesday by the fans. They will also insist on the resignation of Javier Tebas after it was discovered that he presented some papers to the Prosecutor’s Office insinuating that former Barça leaders appeared in them. And it will also be highlighted that the financing for the new Camp Nou has already been signed. None of this will serve to forget a hurtful defeat, one of those that do damage and one that confirms that this team needs significant reinforcements. The losses of De Jong, Christensen, Pedri and Dembelé were very noticeable, and when you looked at the bench you only saw many youngsters who were not suitable to put them in a game of such importance.
Xavi Hernández had no qualms about recognizing his rival’s superiority when it came to taking advantage of opportunities. The coach was one of the most confident in getting the semifinal ahead. He said that he motivated his players for it. But his speech was useless. Barça shrank the night in which all its fans expected it to teach a lesson. The team breathed optimism. It was quiet in the locker room. He ended up disturbed, danced, shaken and beaten. A whole dark night for Barça. Another one in a cup competition.