Bayern Munich defeated Barcelona easily on Wednesday night at Camp Nou thanks to a heavily rotated lineup.
Bayern’s three goals—Sadio Mane, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, and Benjamin Pavard—were enough to further humiliate a Barca team that had already been eliminated from the group stage due to Inter’s earlier victory over Vitkoria Plzen.
Bayern took the lead at Camp Nou within the first 10 minutes, adding insult to injury for Barcelona following their Champions League elimination. Mane raced into the penalty area and calmly chipped the ball over Marc-Ander ter Stegen as a result of Serge Gnabry’s wonderful drilled through ball into his path.
Choupo-Moting’s goal at the halfway point made it 2-0. The regular sub was played through on the right of the penalty by Gnabry and, after controlling with his first touch and firing the ball low and into the bottom right corner of the goal with his second, the game began as a dead rubber and as some sort of unintentional indictment of this Barca team.
When Matthijs de Ligt fouled Robert Lewandowski in the final seconds of the first half while the forward was clear on goal, Barca thought they had been given a lifeline. But after a VAR review, it was determined that De Ligt had only just touched the ball with his toe.
After that, the home team would control possession but not really do anything with it. The first opportunity for the home team wouldn’t come until the 70th minute, when Ansu Fati missed the near post after eluding a few defenders on the left side of the penalty area.
Substitute Pavard made it 3-0 with what was essentially the game’s final kick, snatching in at the back post and sidefooting the ball into the goal.
