President Laporta ‘Furious’ With FC Barcelona Coach Xavi Following Inter Milan Champions League Draw

FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta is furious with head coach Xavi Hernandez for the first team’s performance in the Champions League against Inter Milan on Wednesday.

Dreadful defending and carelessness saw the Blaugrana twice fall behind to the Italians.

Though Robert Lewandowski equalized on each occasion for the score to finish 3-3, Barca are practically out of Europe’s biggest club competition in the group phase for the second year running which will reportedly cost them around €20mn ($19.5mn).

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The international break has to shoulder some of the blame in taking casualties such as Jules Kounde and Ronald Araujo. But as Xavi admitted post match, if you can’t beat Inter at home, then you don’t deserve to be in the Champions League.

The manager got his team selection wrong by opting for a creaky Marcos Alonso and not starting Alejandro Balde, with the same logic applying to not giving Frenkie de Jong the nod from the offset.

And for all the talk of Barca making their best start to a season in five years in La Liga, the four-time winner of the continental competition as a player is yet to prove he has Champions League pedigree in the dugout.

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SPORT writer Joan Vehils reported past midnight that president Laporta is furious with Xavi for the result which will again sentence Barca to the Europa League if Inter beat Viktoria Plzen in the early kick off a fortnight from now before Barca take to the field against group leaders Bayern Munich.

Xavi is also said to be angry with some of his players, and the players themselves fed up with “everyone”.

Vehils adds that the situation is “complicated” at Camp Nou, and that after Sunday’s installment of El Clasico away at Real Madrid, decisions will be made.

BBC reporter Guillem Balague has made his own separate claims that Barca and their board of directors “are looking at the bigger picture”.

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“The bigger picture is that they failed in big matches after the club invested €150mn ($146 million). No one is happy here,” Balague said.

With a loss to Barca’s arch rivals at the weekend, which would seriously upset their chances of winning La Liga, pressure will only increase on Xavi.