You don’t need to pinch yourself. Seriously, that did actually just happen.
Barcelona fell to their heaviest European defeat of all time on Friday evening as Bayern Munich stormed to a terrifyingly dominant 8-2 victory, in a game which felt eerily similar to an adult taking a back garden kickabout at a five-year-old’s birthday party far too seriously.
8-2. Let’s repeat that: 8-2.
The crazy thing about this game is that it actually started fairly evenly. Barcelona could have netted five in the first ten minutes.
They forced David Alaba into an own goal, hit the post and had a Luis Súarez shot well saved by Manuel Neuer, and it looked like we could be in for a 10-10 kind of game.
Bayern decided to hold up their side of the bargain, tearing Barça’s defence open with terrorising ease.
Thomas Müller, Ivan Perišić and Serge Gnabry were all on the score sheet in the first half, with Müller finding the back of the net twice to ensure that this tie was over at half time. Even at 4-1, this looked embarrassing for Barcelona.
If only we knew what was coming.
The worst was yet to come for Barça. Joshua Kimmich fired home after a run from Alphonso Davies which may very well force Nélson Semedo into an early retirement, before Robert Lewandowski beat the offside trap to head home.
And the worst was still yet to come.
Off the bench came Philippe Coutinho – the same Coutinho who joined Barça for £142m, was deemed to be a flop and shipped out on loan to Bayern – and he scored. Twice. You can’t make this stuff up.
There’s a lot of things which won’t be forgotten quickly from this game. We’ll be talking about it for a long, long time.
However, the best thing to come out of the whole thing?
This tweet.
Literally three minutes before the beating began. Comedic timing at its finest.