Former Barcelona of Spain winger, Emmanuel Amuneke has joined in global lamentations over the 8-2 loss suffered by the Spanish LiLiga side in their UEFA Champions League quarter-finals’ clash with Bayern Munich of Germany, megasportsarena.com reports.
The result leaves more pressure on Barcelona’s coach, Quique Setien, who has been under fire for his tactics since taking over the squad and failing to retain the league title, with calls for his sack growing exponentially after one of the heaviest defeats in the club’s history.
Bayern, who are now rated as the team to beat in the race, will now face the winner between Manchester City of England and Olympique Lyon of France in the semi-final on Wednesday; after Thomas Muller – making his 113th Champions League appearance – scored inside four minutes, but it was soon cancelled out by a freak own goal from David Alaba (7).
The first-half floodgates then opened as Ivan Perisic (22), Serge Gnabry (28) and Muller (31) netted in quick succession, after which Setien sent on Antoine Griezmann at the break and there was a glimmer of hope for Barcelona, when Luis Suarez made in 4-2 in the 57th minute, but it was short lived with Bayern still on a roll and half of their goals still to come.
After a sensational solo run from Alphonso Davies, Joshua Kimmich (63) slotted home the fifth before a late glut of goals embarrassed an abysmal Barcelona even further. Not to be left out, Robert Lewandowski (82) saw his goal given after a tight VAR review.
Soon after former Liverpool winger, Philippe Coutinho who is on loan at Bayern from Barca, netted a late double (85, 89), with the eighth and final goal drawing angry reactions from the Spanish side’s substitutes, who displayed more passion than any of their team-mates on the field over the 90 minutes; much to the chagrin of Amuneke.
Although Amuneke left Barca several years ago and is now a fast-rising coach based in Egypt, the 1994 African Footballer of The Year admitted he still feels so much love and passion for the club: and stated how hurt he was by their slump on Friday.
He and other football followers across the world were shocked to see The Catalans implode in the fixture against The Bavarians in Lisbon Portugal, after which the 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup-winning coach admitted it was embarrassing seeing his former team concede eight goals for the first time in a single match since 1946.
The former Tanzania national team coach, who helped The Taifa Stars back to the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations and for the first time in 30 years, went on to reason that La Blaugrana were disgraced because they have an ageing squad and then urged the Catalonia side’s hierarchy to splash the cash this summer, in order to revitalize the side before the new season begins.
He noted that, of the eleven players in Barca’s starting line-up against their highly domineering opponents from Munich, six have passed the age of 30 ; being Gerard Pique (33), Jordi Alba (31), Arturo Vidal (33), Sergio Busquets (32), Lionel Messi (33) and Luis Suárez (33).
Amuneke who played for Barcelona from 1996 to 2000 and featured for them in three UCL games, posited: “I don’t understand this Barcelona team but this is football, we need new renovation in the team. The Bayern team are well-organized, they have clear ideas what they are playing for and you could see Barcelona were not comfortable each time they have the ball.
“The fact remains it is the end of a generation for Barcelona, they just need to see how they can bring in players. When you look at the age of those players also – from the defensive line to the offensive – age is not on their side. Bayern played well and they deserve the result they got.”
