After losing 5-1 in Wolfsburg at the weekend, Bayern fell to a second consecutive heavy defeat with Wednesday’s 4-0 reverse in Barcelona. “Without a shadow of a doubt, that was a massive humiliation, and painful for everyone,” a visibly shocked Karl-Heinz Rummenigge admitted after the Camp Nou clash. “We’re out of the competition, that much is clear,” the chairman frankly acknowledged.
Reaction to Barcelona v Bayern:
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge: “The question is whether to feel anger or disappointment about what’s happened tonight. Without a shadow of a doubt, that was a massive humiliation, and painful for everyone. We’ll have to digest it first, that was a shock. At 4-0 down we’re out of the competition, that much is clear. Especially in the first half, we were handed a bitter lesson by Barcelona. We were as scared as rabbits caught in the headlights.”
Jürgen Klinsmann: “They took us apart in the first half. They showed up our limitations in every area. We’ve been completely unable to cover for the loss of Lucio, Lahm and Klose. Nothing went right for us tonight. We were unable to match them in any area of the field. Obviously, everyone’s hurting and totally gutted. We’ve been taken to pieces by a team which is setting the standards in Europe at the moment. We have to swallow the result for the time being. We wanted to take the fight to Barcelona, get stuck in to the challenges, and disrupt their passing game with a five-man midfield, but we never even came close, we had no physical presence, and we completely failed to hurt them. Jörg Butt was the unluckiest man on the field.“
Mark van Bommel: “They made us look like amateurs in the first half. It doesn’t get much worse than that. Barcelona can be unstoppable. We were lucky it was still only 4-0 at the end. If we’d scored, we might just have been in with a shout in the return. But maybe Barcelona will only send out eight men in Munich – that would give us a chance.“
Jörg Butt: “Time after time, we were a yard too slow throughout the first half, and we failed to prevent them playing the final ball. That’s why Barcelona created so many good chances, and they were ruthless about taking them.“
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