Barcelona were held to a goalless draw against Galatasaray in the Europa League last-16 first leg fixture at Camp Nou on Thursday.
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Barcelona were held to a goalless draw against Galatasaray in the Europa League last-16 first leg fixture at Camp Nou on Thursday. Central defender Eric Garcia, who came into the starting XI ahead of Gerard Pique, had a good outing and he says his team “will learn from this experience” and go to Istanbul to “give it everything” in the second leg next week. A goalless draw means the Catalan club will need to win away from home to go through to the quarterfinals of the competition.
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Eric spoke about the tie after the match and felt the team was lacking in attack and will look to improve for the return fixture. According to barcablaugranes.com, the Spaniad said: “Obviously we intended to win this match tonight. They mightn’t be in a good moment of form at home but we knew that Gala are a very competitive team,”
In the first-half Barca played with good intensity but very few goal-scoring chances were created. The midfielders were playing some quick passing game but the front-tree wasn’t getting involved as much as they would have liked to. Apart from Memphis Depay, nobody looked threatening to score.
Barca were in a similar situation in their last-32 tie against Napoli last month when the Serie A side earned a 1-1 draw at Camp Nou in the first leg. But Xavi’s side secured a dominant 4-2 win at the Diego Maradona stadium in the second leg to enter the round of 16.
“In the first half we allowed ourselves to be pressed out of good possession and, then, in the second half it was a little like the home leg against Napoli. We just lacked that good final touch around the goal – the thing we’ve been so good at in recent matches” the center-back added.
Meanwhile the Turkish side came out with a clear game-plan to defend deep and executed that to perfection. The back-line was organised very well and gave very little space for the opposition to work with. Goalkeeper Inaki Pena made some brilliant saves to earn a draw for his side. However the second leg will be a bit more open game as both sides need to win to progress to the next round.
He concluded “We knew it was going to be hard to put the tie to bed here, but we’ll learn from this experience against them and go to İstanbul to give it everything and try to go through.”
