FC Barcelona are not in control of their own destiny in the Champions League after the Catalan powerhouse drew Inter Milan 3-3 at the Camp Nou on Wednesday.
After going down 2-1 in the 63′ thanks to Lautaro Martinez, Barcelona fought to find a goal to tie the match. Robert Lewandowski found it in the 82′ to pull even at 2-2. However, Robin Gosens put the Nerazzurri back up 3-2.
A Lewandowski header in stoppage time saved a point for the Blaugrana, but left Barcelona in a tough spot. If Milan beat hapless Viktoria Plzen in their next match, Barcelona will be sent down to the Europa League for the second season in a row.
Former Barcelona forward Thierry Henry and former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher – both Champions League analysts for CBS Sports – criticized the club and its players for their emotions in the result. In particular, they highlighted the actions of veterans Sergio Busquets and Gerard Pique.
‘I just want to say something for people to understand… They took the game, Barcelona, to an emotional game too early. You don’t go crazy – still 30 minutes to go – and make it like… a crazy game yet,’ Henry said after the match.
‘It’s still 1-1. In the last five minutes, what we’ve seen in the last ten minutes you go and try to win it because you want to take control of the qualification. They made it a… cup tie and an emotional game way too early. And you expect Pique and Busquets to go like “guys” [calm down]… it’s still the group stage this is not you dying tonight.’
Carragher agreed that the emotions ran too high, but he advised the leaders of the team to show a more measured response in this situation.
I don’t think it’s about whether it was a knockout or a group stage. I think it’s about actually… you need to calm everybody down,’ Carragher explained.
‘Busquets, Pique – two of the greatest players we’ve ever seen for Barcelona and of this generation – they need to settle everybody down they didn’t need it to become an end to end game. What they needed to do for the next ten or 15 minutes was not (try and) score, [it] was to make sure Inter Milan didn’t score.
‘And then eventually, push Inter Milan back and keep sustaining attacks and think we need one goal. I put [myself] in that position if I was playing for Liverpool… at Anfield. If you needed one goal with half an hour to go, you’d back yourselves to get the one goal. Make sure you don’t conceded and the game became too open, too spread, and it became too emotional.’
