April 15, (THEWILL) – Despite a pair of stoppage-time goals, Barcelona were knocked out of the UEFA Europa League quarter-finals by Eintracht Frankfurt after a 3-2 defeat at home on Thursday night, resulting in a 4-3 aggregate loss.
Frankfurt got off to a flying start, cheered on by up to 30,000 travelling fans crammed into Barcelona’s Camp Nou.
Eric Garcia had a good handle on Jesper Lindstrom inside the box, dropping himself and the Dane to the grass to surrender a third-minute penalty – the fourth spot-kick Barcelona has conceded in their previous two meetings.
Filip Kostic scored the game’s first goal and gave his team a 2-1 advantage on aggregate.
Sergio Busquets’ peripheral vision was obliterated by a blizzard of white shirts rushing around the ball in the closing ten minutes of the first half. And, Rafael Borre doubled the advantage with a one-of-a-kind strike from 25 yards past Marc-Andre ter Stegen.
Between Frankfurt’s first two goals, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang placed a close-range header over the bar before wasting an even better opportunity at the start of the second half. Despite having only a fraction of the possession, Frankfurt had the most chances.
The visitors continued to commit well-stocked groups of players in their surges forward despite their two-goal lead. While this daring strategy continued to provide opportunities for the visitors, it also opened huge chasms for Barcelona to exploit, resulting in an enthrallingly game of football.
Barcelona were not doing enough to make their higher ball possession count yet that was not enough to explain away Frankfurt’s third goal. Bundesliga’s ninth-placed team pushed the ball across the ground following a throw-in and Kostic found space to score his second goal of the evening, hammering a signature scuttler into the far corner.
Busquets had a tap-in called off late in the game, but he got his goal with a thumping effort in the opening minute of extra time, unleashing a late frenzy that completely distorted Frankfurt’s balance for the rest of the match.
Memphis Depay converted a 101st-minute penalty caused by Evan N’Dicka’s contact with Luuk de Jong with the game’s final kick.
But there was no time to take advantage of the Frankfurt defender’s red card, and the German team will now face West Ham in the semi-finals.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
