Lionel Messi admits ‘there’s no explanation’ and only ‘anger’ for Barcelona’s Champions League exit to Roma last season.
Barca took a seemingly-convincing 4-1 lead in the first leg of their quarter-final tie with Roma yet were humbled 3-0 in the return fixture at the Olimpico, leaving Messi baffled as to how his side went out in the last eight for a third successive season.
“There’s no explanation for what happened,” he told Mundo Deportivo.
“We were confident, yet we fell asleep and they scored a silly goal, let’s say. It wasn’t a piece of play but a long ball forward and they scored first.
“They gained confidence and we got into the state of not being able to come out [of our shell] and find each other.
“With the pressure of their fans and enthusiasm of being able to achieve [the comeback], they went up and we dropped off.
“It makes me very angry for many reasons; the way we went out, the lead we had in the first leg, although the same thing happened to Liverpool.
“Still, you’re left with the anger of going out again in the quarter-finals after an impressive season because if you notice, we only lost three games and one of them knocked us out of the Champions League.”
