Barcelona has non-triumphantly returned to the Europa League

For the second straight year, Barcelona won’t advance past the Champions League group stage

For the second straight season, Barcelona has been bounced out of the Champions League at the group stage.

After a thrilling draw with Inter two weeks ago, Barcelona needed something of a miracle on Wednesday night. To stay alive in the Champions League, Blaugrana had to hope Czech minnows Viktoria Plzeň — loser of all of its first four matches — could get a result against Inter.

It didn’t happen. Inter beat Plzeň 4-0, consigning Barcelona to the Europa League before its game against Bayern Munich even started.

Xavi’s side opened Group C with a win over Plzeň but consecutive defeats away at Bayern and Inter left them on the brink after three games.

Though Bayern and Inter were an unusually strong duo to be drawn in a group with, the result is still hugely disappointing for a Barcelona side that mortgaged its future to spend over €150 million on signings in the summer.

How costly another group-stage exit will be is still an unsettled matter that partially depends on how far the Blaugrana advance in the Europa League.

Barcelona could be set to miss out on up to €20 million in prize money, according to ESPN, but a deep run in the Europa League could partially offset some of the losses.

But this elimination is about more than money. It’s been more than 20 years since the last time Barcelona was eliminated at the Champions League group stage in consecutive seasons. For one of the giants of the European game, another failure is hard to fathom.

There will always be a certain cache associated with Barcelona, but a summer of negative headlines over disastrous financial mismanagement followed by another high-profile failure on Europe’s biggest stage has definitely taken some of the luster away.

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