Shock in Paris sends Barcelona into freefall

The last time Barcelona failed to reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League was back in 2007 but ten years later, there is a good chance they are going to be eliminated from the tournament before the last eight.  There isn’t a single team who deserves their place in the quarter-finals of Europe’s premier club competition on reputation alone and Barcelona’s performance last night, was one of a team whose reputation is now in question.

Firstly, you can take nothing away from Paris Saint-Germain who came out and were on the front-foot immediately. Instead of sitting back, worrying about the threat of Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi and Neymar, PSG concentrated on their own football and pressed Barcelona when they were in possession, forcing them into several uncharacteristic mistakes during the 90 minutes.

It was only a matter of time before PSG took the lead in the first-half and Angel di Maria supplied the goal, courtesy of a well taken free-kick.  With the Barcelona defence all at sea, Julian Draxler was allowed plenty of time inside the penalty area to fire in the hosts second and send PSG into the dressing room with a 2-0 lead.  The expected fightback from Barcelona did not materialise and in the second half, PSG added to their tally.  Firstly through a well taken goal from di Maria and then a crisp finish from Edinson Cavani at the near post, a goal which takes the Uruguayan onto 32 goals for the season in all competitions.

While nothing should be taken away from a great performance by Unai Emery’s team, who seems to have the perfect plan when it comes to winning in European competitions, Barcelona were very poor by their standards.  Luis Enrique’s team failed to get out of first gear for the entire match, having just one shot on target and their big-name players failed to deliver.

Lionel Messi did not look interested at times and not once did he touch the ball inside the PSG penalty area.  The Argentine forward was disposed easily and lost the ball which led to one of the PSG goals.  It was one of Messi’s poorest nights in a Barcelona shirt and he will want to forget about it quickly but he was not the only one who was way off the pace.  Worryingly for Barcelona, Luis Suarez, Andres Iniesta and Gerard Pique struggled and Sergio Roberto, filling in at right-back endured a nightmare, being left to face Julian Draxler with no protection in-front of him for the whole time the German was on the field.  Neymar was the most industrious of the Barcelona players but his end product was lacking on the night.

The result has left many questioning the future of Luis Enrique at Barcelona but there have been rumours he was going to leave at the end of the season before this result, so to see him go would not be a huge surprise.  The question is, can Barcelona turn things around in the second leg at the Camp Nou?  No one has ever qualified having lost the first leg 4-0 but if there was one team, other than perhaps Real Madrid, you would back to change that statistic, it is Barcelona.  They have three weeks to pick themselves up off the floor and return to winning ways before the return leg.  If they can score an early goal, who knows what might happen but on the evidence of this game, PSG are well in control and should make the quarter-finals of the Champions League.