Ronald Koeman defends Barcelona’s Bayern Munich defeat with 2020 comparison | OneFootball

Ronald Koeman has defended Barcelona’s defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

The Blaugrana put together a lacklustre display against Bayern earlier this week to lose 3-0 in their group stage opener at Camp Nou.

Barca failed to manage a single shot on target in the clash, and it led to more intense criticism Koeman

But the Dutch boss has defended the defeat, reminding fans and journalists of the 8-2 defeat to Bayern Barca suffered only last August.

“Only a little more than a year ago, Barca lost 8-2 against Bayern having played with Messi, Griezmann and Suarez,” said Koeman in his latest press conference.

“The other day, we played the game with Mingueza, Araujo, Balde, Garcia, Gavi, Pedri, Demir and we are all hoping to have Ansu Fati back.

“If we played more open, the loss would have been bigger.”

Koeman has a pretty solid point given heavy defeats in the Champions League are no longer something new for Barca due to disappointing form in Europe.

Given just how much Barca’s squad has been weakened this summer, it was really a choice of how badly they wanted to lose this game against an experienced and talented Bayern side.

Koeman chose to reduce his side’s attacking threat to limit Bayern to three goals, one of which was a big deflection, and as he points out, it could have been a lot worse of Barca had gone for it.

Though, of course, with fans paying a lot of money to watch these games, it’s very difficult for fans to watch such a performance.