{"id":5190,"date":"2026-04-15T09:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/5190\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T09:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:37:10","slug":"barcelona-desperately-need-top-level-defenders-thierry-henry-offers-advice-after-champions-league-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/5190\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Barcelona desperately need top-level defenders\u2019 \u2013 Thierry Henry offers advice after Champions League exit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Barcelona star Thierry Henry says the Catalan giants are in desperate need of some top center-backs following their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcablaugranes.com\/barcelona-uefa-champions-league\/117697\/atletico-madrid-barcelona-la-liga-final-score-match-report-recap-reactions#comments\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Champions League defeat to Atletico;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Champions League defeat to Atletico&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Champions League defeat to Atletico<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Barcelona saw Pau Cubarsi and Eric Garcia sent off over the two legs against Diego Simeone\u2019s side, and Henry says they must invest in their backline this summer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThis Bar\u00e7a desperately needs top-level defenders. We can talk about the referee all night, but we also have to do self-criticism and here there are many things to improve and they must do it. If nothing changes, in the next ten years we will continue to see the same thing and it\u2019s a shame,\u201d he said on CBS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cPlaying with a defensive line forward in these big European games, with this type of defensive approach, everything is complicated. I\u2019ve been saying it for two years: this Bar\u00e7a offers opportunities to the opponent even when they dominate and so it\u2019s very difficult to get through the knockout rounds\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cWe can\u2019t aspire to stay at this level without first-class stability. I\u2019m sorry, but this team desperately needs elite centre-backs next season. If you don\u2019t have the stamina or agility to cover that space, you\u2019re exposing yourself to a real nightmare. This is not just a bad night, it is a structural problem that needs an immediate solution.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Barcelona star Thierry Henry says the Catalan giants are in desperate need of some top center-backs following&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1806,92,187,927,223,1615,84,1753,2178,17,3565],"class_list":{"0":"post-5190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-barcelona","8":"tag-alessandro-bastoni","9":"tag-barcelona","10":"tag-champions-league","11":"tag-eric-garcia","12":"tag-fc-barcelona","13":"tag-gerard-martin","14":"tag-girona","15":"tag-girona-fc","16":"tag-pau-cubarsi","17":"tag-spain","18":"tag-thierry-henry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}