‘Another Nightmare For The Collection’

The Catalan press has taken no prisoners in blasting FC Barcelona for their Europa League playoff defeat to Manchester United on Thursday.

After drawing 2-2 at Camp Nou last week, the Blaugrana were turfed out on the continent once more by losing 2-1 in the second leg in northwestern England and 4-3 on aggregate.

The post-mortem began swiftly, with daily newspaper SPORT saying that the collapse at Old Trafford – after Barca went 1-0 up early – was “another nightmare for the collection”.

That was how the match report was headlined, where Barca were criticsed for being “average” and harboring a plan “to grab the ball and rock it until it fell asleep to avoid quick transitions”.

Another SPORT piece claimed Barca have gone “from disaster to disaster since the Berlin final”, in reference to their last 2015 Champions League win over Juventus in said year.

“Europe continues to be a nightmare for Barca,” the paper wrote. “There are already eight consecutive seasons of disappointments, the last two doubles, because after being eliminated in the group stage of the Champions League and having [to play] the Europa League as ‘punishment’, the Blaugrana have also said goodbye early to the second [string] European competition. A Groundhog Day from which it seems impossible to escape.”

Rival publication Mundo Deportivo adopted a similar nightmare theme and said that Europe “is still a bad dream for Barca”.

“Europe is still a bad dream, a real hell for Barca,” it was written. “In the ‘Theatre of Dreams’, Barca returned to live a new European nightmare. And there are already a few. Although on this occasion Barca knew how to fall with honor and fought until the last minute to equalize the tie, the more than 2,000 culés who supported their team at Old Trafford were again left with the desire to see their team in the next round.”

“For the fourth time running, Barca were knocked out of Europe. They choked in the Champions League in the last two seasons and, after not passing the quarterfinals in last year’s tie, fell in the playoffs of the Europa League,” it was added.

Speaking of an “endemic problem”, another MD columnist concluded that “for years, Barca has put social and political issues before football and that’s why what’s happening happens. Football is not the priority for the club and now it is paying for it.”