Barcelona’s new manager, Ronald Koeman has declared that the Camp Nou giants are not in anyway favorites in the UEFA Champions League this term despite starting the group stage campaign with a 5-1 bashing of Hungarian side Ferencvaros. Barcelona are billed to also take on Italian giants, Juventus and Dynamo Kyiv in the group. While Barcelona made a mincemeat of Ferencvaros at home, Juventus in the other match of the group secured a 2-0 away victory over Dynamo to set the stage for what could be an easy passage for the duo in the group. Though, Koeman doesn’t see his side as favorites, he is however confident they would go far in the money spinning competition. Hear him: “We aren’t the favourites, but we can go far.
” It would be noted that Barcelona who parades one of the world’s best, Lionel Messi are yet to lift the UEFA Champions League diadem since 2015, a situation which fans of the club are not comfortable with, especially against the background of the success story of their rivals, Real Madrid in the competition in the last three terms. Koeman who also spoke on the performance of Messi since the start of the season, especially after his failed bid to leave the club, said Messi has not done badly insisting that the Argentine is happy and playing his captain’s role very well. “I don’t have any complaints or doubts about his effort,” Koeman said, adding… “Right now his performances could be better. On a day-to-day basis, he’s happy and wants to play and be the team’s captain.” It would be noted that Messi is in the final year of his contract with the Catalan giants. He scored the opener in the Tuesday night victory over Ferencvaros.
