Notwithstanding Lionel Messi's patented free-kick, Barcelona lost at home, 2-1, to Osasuna, and the humbling defeat all but sealed Real Madrid's campaign of capturing the La Liga, the club's first since 2017. Messi conceded Los Blancos did their job but he lamented Barca's rivals got a bit of help from his side.
Real's performance in the season, to be fair, is just plain impressive. The side of Zinedine Zidane won all the games played since the resumption of the La Liga season. The club secured the crown by beating Villarreal, 2-1, with one more game to go.
It was a well-deserved victory for Bernabeu and any outside help seemed not necessary, as Messi has suggested. The Barcelona captain though was just expressing his frustrations, disappointed by the dismal showing of his side for most of the season, according to Metro.
It has been tumultuous indeed at Camp Nou. The team manager was sacked midway into the campaign and the man who took over, Quique Setien, failed to turn things around. Then there's the infighting that distracted everyone so the end-result was not entirely a surprise.
As Messi had described, his team appeared to be a sorry picture, and far from the dominating force that it was in the past three years. The Catalans have been "very erratic, very weak, and low-intensity," the Argentine complained, as opposed to Real's inspiring run in form.
The loss suffered during the Thursday match is sixth for Barcelona and highlighted how things went wrong for the club, and how things can still go wrong. Messi warned that their woes have yet to end.
"We didn't want to end the season like this but it represents how the season has gone ... We lost a lot of points and today's game is a summary of the season," Goal reported the Argentine superstar as saying.
He admitted that it has been terrible for Barcelona since the start of 2020 and to get better, the team must change a lot of things. Messi said the club's tradition of winning can still be rekindled and the break to come should be used for that purpose.
The captain called on his teammates to do some self-checks, be critical, and make the necessary improvements. It is good that a short break will come before the Champions League and Messi recommended for everyone "to clear the heads a bit."
Barcelona will meet Napoli in August for the last 16 of the Champions League and the aggregate score for the second leg tie was at 1-1. The skipper said adjustments must be made to get better results.
"If we want to win the Champions League, we have to change a lot. If we continue like this, we will lose the game against Napoli," Messi said.
