Barcelona star Robert Lewandowski explains Champions League exit to Paris Saint-Germain

Barcelona star Robert Lewandowski has contradicted Xavi Hernandez’s rhetoric again, while answering questions about their Champions League elimination to Paris Saint-Germain. The Blaugrana coach declared that Barcelona were the better team before Ronald Araujo’s red card, and stood up to PSG, but Lewandowski felt they could not compare themselves to the French champions.

Lewandowski spoke about the 2020 Ballon d’Or, reembering that for many people, he would have won the award had it not been cancelled.

“I deserved to win it, that’s how I feel. If you win everything with the team, if you score so many very important goals, you can think like that. The decision to cancel it in 2020 was a disappointment, but I don’t want to think about things that are out of my control,” as he told Le Parisien, as carried by Cadena SER.

“On the one hand, I am very proud of what I have done, but on the other I tell myself that there is still work to do.”

🚨 Xavi's relationship with Vitor Roque is cordial. It's false that the coach doesn't speak to him. Xavi asks the Brazilian to continue to show himself in training. @sanantheone

— barcacentre (@barcacentre) May 7, 2024

Regarding their defeat to PSG, Lewandowski explained that the mistakes they made robbed Barcelona of the chance to try and put themselves at that level.

“At that level, when you make those types of mistakes and bad decisions, it is very difficult to compare yourself with teams like PSG. If you compare yourself with a team and you lose because the rival was better, you can accept it in another way. But in this match, it’s too difficult to compare when you make mistakes like that at this level.”

Lewandowski also spoke highly of PSG midfielder Vitinha, while declaring that Kylian Mbappe struck him as smart.

“He is a very intelligent guy who is very clear about how he wants to do things. He keeps his feet on the ground. With Kylian you can talk about many things. If you talk to him, you know that he is a very serious guy, with him the conversation is always going in the right direction. Although he is young, he already has a lot of knowledge.”

It is not the first time that star player has contradicted his manager in public, most famously of course with Ilkay Gundogan asking for more from his teammates during the PSG defeat, and their Clasico loss at Montjuic. One of the concerns before Xavi announced his exit from Barcelona in January was the relationship with the veterans in the squad.