Home ›› 14 Sep 2021 ›› Sport
Barcelona are getting ready to face Bayern Munich on Tuesday as the Catalan club will start their Champions League campaign without Lionel Messi for the first time since 2003.
Barca face Bayern Munich at Camp Nou in Group E on Tuesday and will begin the competition as outsiders following a traumatic summer transfer window.
Facing debts of more than a billion euros, the club let go 11 players, including Messi, who joined Paris Saint-Germain after being told his contract could not be renewed.
Messi scored 120 goals in 149 European games for Barcelona and won the tournament four times, in 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015, the last three alongside Busquets.
“I felt like everyone else, I was in a state of shock, because of what Leo means for Barca and what he means personally to me and our families,” Busquets said in a press conference.
“I had emotions that were difficult to manage. But these are hard decisions that are not up to us and now we have to change the mindset.”
Busquets said Barcelona are beginning a “new era” without Messi and pointed to Chelsea’s surprise success last season as evidence of what is possible in the Champions League. “We are very ambitious,” Busquets said.
The 33-year-old also leant his support to Barcelona coach Ronaldo Koeman, whose future has again come under scrutiny after comments he made in the Dutch media last week.
Koeman said a lack of clarity over his future was “not pleasant” and accused the club’s president Joan Laporta of “speaking too much” for “suggesting the coach doesn’t have all the power”.
Asked on Monday about his relationship with Laporta, Koeman said, “My relationship with the president is good. If there are things to talk about, we talk about them.”
Barcelona take on Bayern for the first time since their humilating 8-2 defeat by the German champions in August 2020, after which Gerard Pique said the club “needed changes from top to bottom”.
“Several players suffered that night,” said Koeman. “It is something to take into account because now we have the chance to change it.”
The Dutch coach said that their match against Bayern will be a difficult game but he still had high hopes.
“Bayern are a great team, with very experienced players, and it will be a very difficult game, but we have high hopes. We play at home and we will try to get a good result,” he said.
Bayern boss Julian Nagelsmann said that Kingsley Coman and Corentin Tolisso, who are suffering from calf injuries, will not start against Barcelona but Serge Gnabry will travel with the side to Barcelona.
“Gnabry will travel, Tolisso will not. Coman is in the squad but not an option to start. We’ll have to wait and see about Serge as well, it will be a last-minute call. It’s looking good for Lewandowski again though,” the Bayern boss said.
