in the press conference after the match<\/a>: “If you watched the way they play, you will realise that Barcelona is the best team in the world right now.”\u00a0<\/p>\nHis side had not come only to defend, he explained, but Barcelona’s early goal changed everything. “We had chances, and we tried to score, but mistakes against a team of this quality are extremely costly.”<\/p>\n
Bitter as the loss was, the Feyenoord coach was determined to turn it into a valuable lesson for his players. “There is a lot that needs improving, you can learn a lot from the opponent, despite our big difference in level.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
He did not hesitate to name Barcelona as candidates for the European title this season. “Barcelona is capable of winning the Champions League.”<\/p>\n
The match carried a special significance for the coach, who returned to the club whose shirt he wore as a player. “I was focused on the match, and I recognised some people whom I greeted, I have very fine memories at this club.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Flick had praised Feyenoord’s performance despite the result, and Van Bronckhorst returned the compliment: “It was very kind of Flick to say he admires us, that we pressed hard, and that we did not settle only for defending.”<\/p>\n
Reserving exceptional praise for Barcelona’s young star Lamine Yamal, he concluded: “At this age, he has achieved everything. The fans adore him, he can win the Ballon d’Or, I see him like Messi and Ronaldinho.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Giovanni van Bronckhorst offered no excuses and refused to hide behind the harsh scoreline after Feyenoord’s humiliating 5-1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4016,92,29888,187,29184,30908,2376],"class_list":["post-83443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-ballon-dor","tag-barcelona","tag-barcelona-vs-feyenoord","tag-champions-league","tag-feyenoord","tag-g-van-bronckhorst","tag-l-yamal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83443","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=83443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}