Pedri – Barcelona are not ready to compete in the Champions League

Barcelona have crashed out of the Champions League for a second straight season – something they knew ahead of Wednesday night’s fixture with Bayern Munich. However according to Pedri, it proved that they were not ready to compete in the Champions League.

Suffering a third 3-0 defeat in two seasons to Bayern Munich (and taking their balance to 11 conceded and 0 scored), Barcelona took little from their final home match at Camp Nou in the Champions League this season. They will not play in the Champions League there again until 2024 at the earliest, as they move to Montjuic while renovations are carried out.

Manager Xavi Hernandez admitted that his side did not compete against Bayern and partly put it down to the psychological blow of elimination before the match.

Pedri also mentioned that as he spoke to Mundo Deportivo, but first he confirmed the press’ assessment that this was a failure for Barcelona.

“Of course, it’s a failure, Barça have to get out of the group and they haven’t because we didn’t deserve to continue in the Champions League. We are a very young team, with a lot of room for improvement, we have made great signings, but it has not been enough for us enough to compete in the Champions League and it’s a great disappointment”.

He sees his side as being a long way off their goals though.

“We lack many things, but we have to be self-critical. It is true that in Munich we deserved more, in Milan there were a couple of circumstances… but after seeing what happened today it has been seen that we are not prepared to compete in the Champions League”.

Frequently Barcelona got to the final third against Bayern but struggled to create much from there.

“We need to be more calm with the ball to attack, it’s one of the big things we have to improve. And apart from the mood, it has been seen that Bayern were very strong physically and winning the duels, which is very important in this competition” .

It has been a regular criticism of Xavi’s Barcelona that they are too vertical and somewhat hasty in their play. Once again that idea appears to have been levelled at him and this time by his own player. Equally, it could well be part of Xavi’s message that he has simply been unable to implement so far.