Ronald Araujo and Joao Cancelo were singled out for criticism by Thierry Henry after Barcelona were dumped out of the Champions League by PSG.
Barcelona looked set to progress to the semi-finals after Raphinha scored early on in Spain on Tuesday night to give his side a 4-2 lead on aggregate.
But things spiraled out of control soon after when Araujo was sent off for fouling Bradley Barcola as he bared down on goal – a decision that left manager Xavi seething with the referee.
Against 10-men, Ousmane Dembele and Vitinha scored to put PSG back in the tie, before Manchester City loanee Cancelo brought down Dembele in the box in the 61st minute.
Kylian Mbappe fired in the resulting penalty to give the Parisians the lead before scoring again late on to seal the win and send the Ligue 1 giants through to the semi-finals where they’ll play Borussia Dortmund following their remarkable victory over Atletico Madrid.
Xavi laid the blame entirely with referee Istvan Kovacs, but while Arsenal and Barcelona legend Henry could understand the frustration, he believed both the red card and penalty calls were right and blasted the two culpable defenders.
Discussing Araujo’s sending off, the former forward said on CBS: ‘Do not dive in like that and make the decision for the referee. You know if you’re going to make it or if you’re not going to make it.
‘So let him go and hope that you’re goalkeeper’s going to save it. Don’t let the referee have the power to make – what Xavi calls – a mistake.’
He later added: ‘If he [Cancelo] looks at this tonight he will go, “why did I tackle”.
‘I can understand if Dembele was right in front of the goal and you think he is going to shoot – you dive in. He is in the corner of the box!
‘Even if he wasn’t caught and it went to VAR, VAR would have seen leg before ball, so you don’t even have to tackle that one, just stand your ground, go with him stand your ground.’
While these individual errors were crucial, Henry believes the whole Barcelona team is accountable for the loss, saying the occasion got to the players: ‘I just think there were too many nervous mistakes from Barcelona.
‘The Champions League is an outstanding competition, but what it does to you… it makes you nervous. If you make mistakes you will pay the price straight away and that is why it is so hard to win this competition because you cannot make one mistake.
‘Barcelona deserved to go down to 10-men. The penalty was a penalty. That doesn’t mean you have to concede goals. They didn’t concede those goals because they were down to 10-men, it’s because they started to panic.
‘I don’t care who you are, you cannot panic in difficult situations because it will creep on you, creep on the team, creep on the stadium.’
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