ERNESTO VALVERDE CONCEDED Barcelona were not good enough to beat Roma after they were stunned in a 3-0 second-leg defeat to crash out of the Champions League, as the Spanish press tore his side apart.
A 4-1 victory at Camp Nou had one Barca foot in the last four, but they crumbled in Rome as goals from Edin Dzeko, Daniele De Rossi and Kostas Manolas dumped La Liga’s leading side out in the quarter-finals.
And coach Valverde had no excuses for the Blaugrana, acknowledging that they were outplayed by Eusebio Di Francesco’s Roma.
“When you lose like this it’s always hard,” he said. “But it’s simple to say that our opponents were very strong from the first minute to the last.
“They applied high pressure throughout and that made it hard to play our game. We couldn’t overcome their pressing. They won the second ball, the timing of their goals was important.
“This was a bad day for us. The truth is that they were very good and we weren’t.
“It’s a painful defeat, no question. We all had the desire to win this but there’s only one team left at the end. We’ve been left behind on the road but there’s no other remedy than to continue through what will be a couple of tough days.”
Barcelona hold an 11-point lead in La Liga and still have a Copa del Rey final clash against Sevilla to look forward to, but the front pages of this morning’s Spanish newspapers don’t make for good reading for Valverde and his players.
‘Total failure in Europe’
‘The fall of Rome’
‘Failure without excuses’
Conversely, it was a night of celebration in Rome as the Italian side’s incredible comeback win was hailed as ‘the greatest night in Roma’s history’.
The “giallorossi” now advance to the Champions League semi-finals for the first time since 1984, and their fans can start dreaming of the ultimate victory in the final in Kiev in May.
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