Lionel Messi was in tears after Liverpool dumped Barcelona out of the Champions League in 2019 – now fans are chanting his name after their latest dismal failure in his absence
Barcelona fans chanted Lionel Messi’s name as they crashed out of the Champions League on Wednesday night.
Their 3-0 defeat to Bayern Munich at the Nou Camp sent the Catalan club crashing out of the competition at the group stage for the second straight year. With Messi lighting up France with Paris Saint-Germain, there was a clear case of missing what they once had.
From Messi’s perspective, it is clear what Barcelona means to him, especially their Champions League performance. At the height of his powers, they won the competition in 2011 and 2015 but have been on a sudden decline in recent years.
That decline started to unravel against Roma in the quarter-finals in 2018, then spiralled when they were beaten 4-0 by Liverpool at Anfield in the semi-finals the following year. Defeat on Merseyside left Lionel Messi in tears in the corridors, inconsolable in the famous old stadium as he tried to contemplate the defeat.