Joan Laporta, president of Barcelona, reflected on the team’s elimination from the Champions League and the pain of watching Inter beat Viktoria Plzen.
The Blaugrana suffered a frustrating 3-0 home loss to Bayern Munich yesterday, confirming their third place finish in Group C. Barcelona will now be sent down to the Europa League play-offs, a painful and costly relegation, and regrets are still high following their two recent matches against Inter.
Speaking in a press conference, Laporta first discussed the defeat to Bayern Munich and the pain of watching Inter’s win.
“Unfortunately the miracle did not happen. We have to thank the fans because in a very difficult game they encouraged the players and the team.
“We have the best fans in the world. It was an emotionally difficult match to play, after watching the Inter game all together, which was torture for us.”
He then commented on the next steps for Barcelona following their relegation to the Europa League.
“Now we have to look ahead, we still have La Liga and other competitions, we knew that in this building period there would be ups and downs. We have to keep growing every day.”
Simone Inzaghi has now guided Inter to the Champions League knock-out stages in both of his years in the Lombardy capital, something that his predecessor Antonio Conte failed to do in either campaign.
The Nerazzurri started this season slowly but found confidence after their 1-0 win over Barcelona, a result they followed up on in Catalonia when they picked up a point in a 1-1 draw.
Nice.