Xavi says Barcelona felt “robbed in their own home” in Thursday’s Europa League exit to Eintracht Frankfurt, after a fiasco over fan allocations saw a dominant portion of travelling fans at Camp Nou.
The Blaugrana were knocked out of Europe in their own back yard by a superb performance from the Bundesliga visitors, who boasted a larger percentage of supporters than typicaly found for the former’s home matches.
Barca have subsequently pointed to the psychological effect of feeling away on their own turf, and Xavi reinforced that it had been a distressing time for his players.
What has been said?
“The players did not feel like they were playing at home,” Xavi told his pre-match press conference.
“It’s not an excuse, but the atmosphere conditioned us. We were not comfortable. I had a bad feeling from the first moment when we got on the bus at the hotel and we did not feel at home.
“They were throwing everything at us, [the players] couldn’t even get down the tunnel. Then we gave a penalty away in the first minute. It was a fateful night in every sense, sporting and institutionally. It started badly and ended badly. You feel robbed in your own home.”
Coach vows no repeat incident
The heavy number of Frankfurt supporters present led to an apology from Barca president Joan Laporta, and Xavi said that he expects to know why such a large portion of the crowd was made up by opposition supporters.
“The club will give an explanation at some point — or at least find solutions so it does not happen again,” he added.
“It was the club’s mistake, for sure. When the club finds out what errors led to Thursday’s events, they will explain it to us.”
