Barcelona News: “Rome disaster affected us mentally ahead of Anfield collapse” - Gerard Pique

What's the story?

Barcelona defender Gerard Piqué has finally opened up about what happened at Anfield a fortnight ago, when Barcelona somehow managed to throw away a 3-0 first leg lead to suffer a humiliating Champions League exit.

According to the controversial Catalan defender, the Barcelona players were mentally affected by what happened in Rome last year, and couldn’t manage to get out of the “mental block”.

In case you didn’t know….

It is no longer news that Barcelona crashed out of the Champions League at the hands of Liverpool in the most bizarre fashion, where they somehow managed to give away a 3-0 lead from the first leg to hand Liverpool a 4-0 victory at Anfield.

This was not the first time the Catalan giants blew off a 3-goal advantage, as they faced a similar outcome in last year’s Champions League quarter-finals, where AS Roma pulled off a historic comeback to knock Barcelona out of the Europe’s elite competition.

The heart of the matter

When asked to talk about Barcelona’s embarrassing Champions League exit to Liverpool at Anfield, Piqué said:

"I think people were mentally affected by what happened in Rome because it had happened so recently. It was a mental block,” as quoted by Marca.

“They pressed very high, we lacked our usual passing rhythm, and it was very intense. Anfield also played its role.”

Pique also supported Barcelona’s manager Ernesto Valverde, who has recently received a lot of criticism from a section of the Barcelona faithful and football pundits, after his successive failures to see Barcelona through to another historic treble.

“Catalans are very demanding and we like to do things perfectly.

“It's not winning, but how you win. Pep Guardiola's time is very recent, which was the best time to play football here.

"The debate will continue whoever the coach is, but I can assure you that Valverde wants to play the same style. I'm in the dressing room and I know what he tells us to do," he added.

What’s next?

Piqué and Barcelona would like to finish the campaign with another domestic double in their kitty, and they are gearing up to face Valencia on Saturday night in the Copa del Rey final.