Barcelona's nightmare night: Camp Nou turned white, whistles, miscalculation and elimination

Posted Saturday, April 16, 2022 by Marca.com

A disastrous Thursday for Barcelona

Barcelona's nightmare night: Camp Nou turned white, whistles, miscalculation and elimination
Eintracht Frankfurt fans, Joan Laporta and Xavi

Thursday night was disastrous for Barcelona, as the club were knocked out of the Europa League at the quarter-final stage by Eintracht Frankfurt. However, it was not only the events on the pitch that were so disappointing the the Blaugrana.

The Camp Nou was filled with as many as 30,000 Eintracht Frankfurt supporters, which turned the stadium white and even saw the Barcelona players whistled from the warm-ups onwards.

Joan Laporta spoke about this at full time and the president was angry.

"I am worried because what happened was embarrassing and it cannot happen again," he said.

"We have information about what happened, but we need time to process it.

"We are going to take action because it is outrageous and shameful."

The situation left the club's members outraged, with a number of them even calling for the club president to resign.

Eintracht Frankfurt as the home side

Around 5,000 Eintracht Frankfurt fans were expected to be in attendance in the away section of the Camp Nou. However, there were Eintracht Frankfurt fans across the whole stadium, leaving Barcelona and their supporters feeling like the away side in their own stadium.

Xavi Hernandez spoke of his anger at full time over what happened in the stands during the match.

"It is clear that the atmosphere didn't help us," he said.

"It seemed like a final, with the stadium divided in two.

"The club are investigating how it happened. It was our error of calculation that is clear."

He went on to add that he expected more Barcelona fans to be at the game.

"It is disappointing," he said.

"We had spoken with the players beforehand and we hoped that the fans would be here.

"Thank you to the fans who came."

There will be consequences at Barcelona

"It left me surprised, because it didn't feel like we were playing at home," said Jordi Cruyff.

"I don't know if it influenced the result. We were excited about this competition, because we were playing very well, and now that feeling has been lost a little.

"We have to look at what to improve so that the team has as much support as possible.

"The situation with the fans must be dealt with by those responsible for this - I only deal with the sporting side."

An economic blow for Barcelona

Barcelona's failure to qualify for the semi-final of the Europa League has also seen them miss out on 2.5 million euros.

They would have earned 4.6m euros for reaching the final, and a further 4m euros for lifting the trophy.

Barcelona's only option now is to continue fighting for the LaLiga Santander title or, at least, ensuring that they qualify for the Champions League. Above all, they must make sure that a night like this never happens again.