By Chukwuemeka Opara
Abakaliki – Ebonyi soccer fans have stated that Barcelona’s 2-8 massacre by Bayern Munich might signify the end of its dominance of world football alongside its Captain, Lionel Messi.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Barcelona FC of Spain was humiliated 2-8 by Bayern Munich of Germany in a single-legged, UEFA Champions League quarter final cracker in Lisbon, Portugal on Aug.14.
The fans interviewed by a NAN correspondent on Saturday in Abakaliki, said that Barcelona had never lost a match with such margin in recallable history as the heavy loss laid credence to its recent dwindling form.
Jack-Moses Ekwe, former National Welfare Officer of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) said that the defeat changed an existing world football order with ‘precision’ outwitting possession in football.
“Barcelona has dominated world football with its possession and entertainment football but Bayern Munich staged a ‘coup’ with precision football to dismantle the Catalan super-powers (Barcelona).
“Bayern has shown that it is the best club in Europe currently as it employed such strategy to ‘massacre’ Chelsea FC of England 7-1 on aggregate in the competition’s second round stage,” he said.
Chief Nathaniel Okwu, a timber merchant and soccer buff laid the blame of Barcelona’s humiliation on over-reliance on its enigmatic skipper and acclaimed world’ best player, Lionel Messi.
“It has been discovered that any time Messi loses his bearing in a match, his team is always humiliated and this applies even in the Argentine national team.
“This is however, not the end of the road for the Catalan giants as every ‘domineering’ team in world football’s history, have always passed through this, ‘down-to-earth’ stage,” he said.
Peter Nnadozie, Chairman of the Ebonyi wing of the Chelsea FC Fans Club, ‘thanked’ Bayern Munich for showing that Chelsea was not the worst team in the competition for the 2019—2020 season.
“Bayern Munich beat Chelsea 7-1 over two legs and after beating Barcelona 8-2 in single tie, one wonders what the final result could have been if the tie was played over two-legs,” he said.
“This is a sentiment shared by Chelsea fans across the globe as the present Bayern team is being seen as a ‘disciplinary committee’’, he said.
Mrs Juile Ikpe, a youth activist and soccer enthusiast,however advised soccer fans not to overate the Bayern Munich team as football is not ‘mathematics’.
“People are already positing that Bayern will equally thrash the remaining teams in the competition on its way to win the title.
“Soccer history has shown that a team can device an ‘antidote’ for the rampaging Germans and cause another football upset in this season’s champions league competition,” she said.
(NAN)
