‘Europa is our reality now’

Bayern’s Thomas Mueller heads the team’s first goal against Barcelona on Wednesday. Pic/Getty Images

Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez vowed to return the Spanish giants to the pinnacle of European football after they crashed out of the Champions League on Wednesday with a 3-0 defeat at Bayern Munich. Five-time European champions Barca were eliminated in the group stages for the first time in 21 years. They had reached the Last 16 in each season since 2003-04, when they did not qualify for the competition at all.

Goals by Thomas Mueller and Leroy Sane gave Bayern a 2-0 half-time cushion in falling snow at the Allianz Arena, which was devoid of spectators due to high numbers of Covid-19 cases in Bavaria. Teenager Jamal Musiala grabbed Bayern's third to seal Barcelona's fate.

New era

"I'm angry. This is our reality now. We start a new era from here - to work hard and get back in the Champions League," said Xavi. Bayern, who also beat Barca 3-0 at the Camp Nou when the sides met in September, had already qualified for the knock-out stages as Group E winners. They now join Liverpool and Ajax with a perfect six victories from six games in the group stage.

Benfica's 2-0 win at home to Dynamo Kiev means Barcelona finish third and drop into the Europa League. It was almost eight years to the day since Bayern lost a home Champions League game in the group phase and the Bundesliga leaders were in no mood to be generous. Xavi, 41, who took charge of struggling Barcelona four weeks ago, has now suffered back-to-back defeats after his first loss as head coach against Real Betis last weekend.

Time to reboot

"We start from scratch. Unfortunately, we are in the Europa League, which is not the place for us," insisted Xavi. "We will work hard to put Barcelona back in the right place. We have many things to correct. We need to win the Europa League and recover the points in the Spanish league. We have had some injuries, maybe we can sign some more players, but we start from zero."

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