‘Messi should not have doubts about this team’

After crashing out of the Champions League, coach Ronald Koeman said that Argentine striker Lionel Messi should not have any doubts about the quality of this Barcelona side.

Messi missed the penalty against Paris Saint-Germain as the LaLiga giants played out a 1-1 draw in the Champions League second-leg clash of the round-of-16 fixture on Wednesday (local time). PSG had defeated Barcelona 4-1 in the first-leg and as a result, the French side progressed to the quarter-finals 5-2 on aggregate.

“Leo’s seen for a while that the team is improving with the changes we’ve made. There are many youngsters with quality and a big future coming in, so it’s not a question of having doubts about this team,” Goal.com quoted Koeman as saying.

French striker Kylian Mbappe opened the scoring in the second-leg fixture as he converted the penalty in the 30th minute of the game. The lead did not last long as Messi’s 37th-minute strike squared-off things for the visitors at Parc des Princes. No further goals were scored in the second half of the clash.

It is the first time Barcelona have crashed out of the Champions League without reaching the quarter-finals since 2007 and, after Juventus were knocked out on Tuesday, neither Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo will feature in the last eight for the first time since 2005.