Home ›› 28 Oct 2022 ›› Sport
Barcelona exited the Champions League at the group phase for the second season running on Wednesday, a 3-0 home defeat by Bayern Munich rubbing salt in the wound after their fate was sealed 700 kilometres away.
Inter Milan beat Viktoria Plzen at San Siro before kick-off at Camp Nou, ensuring Barcelona would drop into the Europa League again despite their lavish summer expenditure on Robert Lewandowski, Jules Kounde, Raphinha and other players.
With the club 1.3 billion euros ($1.31 billion) in debt at the end of 2021, Barcelona president Joan Laporta pulled “palancas” -- levers -- all summer long, like a Las Vegas slot machine, until he had cashed out the 865 million euro jackpot he was looking for.
In came those star names, plus a raft of other signings including Franck Kessie, Andreas Christensen and Marcos Alonso, as coach Xavi Hernandez and the board revamped their squad, hunting for instant success.
The cost of their deals was 49 percent of their production arm Barca Studios sold to Socios and Orpheus Media, raising 200 million euros, and 25 percent of their La Liga television rights for the next 25 years sold to US investment firm Sixth Street across two deals, for around 665 million euros.
Enthusiasm soared in Catalonia and attendances rose after the disillusionment of last season, with 84,000 at Camp Nou on Wednesday, despite the improbability, and quickly, impossibility, of the Bayern match being anything beyond an exercise to salvage some pride.
Change has come slower than Barcelona hoped for in Europe and their only win in five group stage matches was over Viktoria Plzen.
