fc barcelona’s champions league journey ends in the quarter-finals despite a valiant 2-1 away victory against atlético de madrid. the catalans, trailing 2-0 from the first leg, couldn’t complete the comeback. raphinha strongly criticized the refereeing decisions.
hope flickered briefly. after a 2-0 defeat at camp nou, barcelona delivered a fiery first half at the metropolitano. lamine yamal capitalized on an early error by clément lenglet, a former player, scoring in the 4th minute. ferran torres then doubled the lead in the 24th minute with a curling shot, leveling the tie on aggregate (2-2). a remarkable turnaround seemed within reach.
however, in the 80th minute, referee clément turpin, after var consultation, sent off barça’s centre-back eric garcia for a foul on alexander sorloth, who was through on goal. reduced to ten men, hansi flick’s team pushed hard in the final minutes. ronald araujo missed a late chance to equalize, heading over the bar in stoppage time.
catalans denounce refereeing
after the match, the german coach didn’t hide his bitterness. “if you look again at the two matches, we deserve to reach the semi-finals,” said hansi flick. “it was our dream to win the champions league, we are all very sad,” he added. the coach felt his players had done enough to qualify.
raphinha was much more outspoken. the brazilian winger didn’t mince his words. “for me, it was a robbery,” he declared. “what i really want to understand is the criteria of the referees towards barça,” the brazilian continued. “i understand making a mistake in a match, but in two consecutive matches? it’s impossible to understand,” he concluded, visibly angry with the officiating.
for barça, this elimination extends a poor run in european competition. it marks the eleventh consecutive year without lifting the trophy for the blaugrana. atlético, on the other hand, reaches the semi-finals for the first time since 2017. diego simeone will be counting on his team’s solid defense to dream of a final in budapest.
