"Five-nil!" In the presidential box at Camp Nou, Barcelona's president, Josep Bartomeu, wiped his face, took a deep breath, and spoke in a tone full of helplessness and dejection.
It seemed he wasn't surprised by the result.
Even though the boos from Camp Nou rang out once again.
Strictly speaking, he was no longer Barcelona's president.
Currently, the club was in a transitional period without a president. A new one would be elected after the March elections, and only then would Bartomeu officially step down.
For now, he still held power without the title.
"Tonight, the players' fighting spirit was awful, especially Messi. He contributed nothing. I think we can't be polite to this sewer rat anymore. We've given him everything, and that's enough!" said the club's legal director, Román Gómez Ponti, cursing angrily.
His feud with Messi had gone back a long way, particularly with Messi's troublesome brother.
In fact, Barcelona's management was also extremely frustrated with Messi's agent.
Who would have thought that Messi's highly regarded agent didn't even understand the contract? It would be a joke to tell anyone.
"Let him go to hell!" Ponti suggested.
Bartomeu turned his head and looked over to where Barcelona's CEO, Oscar Grau, was seated.
"I agree too. For both public and private reasons, he should be gone," Grau said.
Similar discussions had actually been going on for a long time.
Many thought it started in 2020, but in reality, it went much further back, even very early on.
From a tactical point of view, there had always been a belief that Messi's presence severely hampered Barcelona's tactical reforms.
It's hard to say whether that view is right or wrong, but Barcelona had clearly reached a point where reform was essential. If Messi stayed, such reform would be difficult to implement.
This wasn't just the Bartomeu administration's stance. Head coach Ronald Koeman had raised this issue when he first met with management before taking the job.
Break the old to build the new. Messi could not stay.
Not just Messi, but Busquets, Piqué, and others could not stay either.
But this required immense resolve.
And from the perspective of club operations, the presence of Messi and others had a severe impact on the wage bill.
Since 2013, after La Liga implemented the so-called salary cap system, it strictly stipulated that each club's salary expenditure could not exceed 70% of its budget.
Barcelona's current salary expenditure was close to 700 million euros, reaching an absurd level.
The first to be affected were veterans like Messi, Busquets, and Piqué.
They had brought little to no improvement to the team's performance, yet they accounted for a staggering portion of the wage bill.
Over the past few years, the club had tried every possible way to clear out the deadwood, but the results were far from ideal.
Some players had been shipped out, but many were left unwanted.
The reason was simple: their salaries were too high.
Bartomeu's team had once held a meeting to discuss why Barcelona's wage bill had spiraled out of control. Everyone pointed to Messi.
Because it was Messi's astronomical salary that pushed the club's overall wage structure to its breaking point.
Previously, Bartomeu and the board had already run into a lot of trouble when Messi's contract was leaked by accident.
Of course, the finance department had offered explanations. The club's debt was too high, close to 1.5 billion euros, with short-term debt approaching 1 billion. It was an utterly absurd figure.
Although the club still held a large amount of cash and financial assets, short-term debt still impacted their salary cap, forcing Barcelona to face a difficult choice.
Messi, or the others?
If Messi stayed, the club would have to sell other players, possibly many of them. If Messi was sold, the club could retain other players and gain significant wage space for new signings.
But these issues no longer concerned Bartomeu's team.
One major reason why Ponti, Grau, and others proposed selling Messi was that Joan Laporta, the current frontrunner in the presidential race, had always played the Messi card. He had always supported Messi.
Another candidate, Victor Font, campaigned on improving the club's financial situation. He was a successful businessman, and many hoped he could become Barcelona's own Florentino Pérez.
Font's campaign assistant was Xavi.
There was also Toni Freixa, a former high-ranking club official who was now running for president. He focused on signing superstars. In every speech, he would emphasize that if elected, he would go all-out to sign Leeds United's top superstar, Haaland, to go head-to-head with Real Madrid's Mbappé.
But he never explained where the massive funds to sign Haaland would come from.
Never trust the opposition's promises.
That's a fact.
"I very much agree with your views."
Bartomeu sighed deeply. "But, Ponti, Grau, letting Maradona go was former president Núñez's biggest regret."
From today's standpoint, Messi may never win the World Cup or claim the title of 'King of Football', but he was undoubtedly the closest to it since Maradona.
And he came from Barcelona.
Missing out on the 'King of Football' would be the club's greatest regret.
Bartomeu didn't want to carry the burden of being the man who drove Messi out.
Looking at Laporta's current approval rating, with nearly 60% of Barcelona fans supporting him, it showed how revered Messi still was in their hearts.
Bartomeu did not want to take that blame.
"Laporta previously proposed at a board meeting to hire a professional financial officer to audit the club's finances. Put that on hold for now," Bartomeu suddenly said, shifting the topic.
This left Grau and Ponti momentarily stunned.
They were discussing Messi. Why bring up Laporta and the board now? Wait a second...
Grau and Ponti were no fools. They exchanged glances and immediately understood.
Right?
Bartomeu didn't want to be the one who pushed Messi out. So who would be the scapegoat?
Of course, the next guy.
But the problem was, if the financial audit was done now, would they be able to shift the blame?
"Brilliant! Barto, I get it!" Ponti laughed heartily.
"Stop laughing," Bartomeu quickly said. "We're 5-0 down right now. If you get caught on camera, I can't protect you."
Ponti immediately fell silent.
These days, self-media, livestreams, and journalists were everywhere. They were simply omnipresent.
Who knew which word or facial expression might suddenly become a huge problem?
"Grau, take care of this. Stall it for another month, until March. Once the new president is elected, we'll hand everything over and walk away. After that, it's no longer our concern," Bartomeu instructed.
He might even be the first to stand up publicly and accuse Laporta of ruining the club's financial situation.
What? Debt?
Come on. So many clubs in Europe, even a team like Leeds United, carry debt.
Interest rates are so low. Banks are practically handing out free money. Only a fool wouldn't borrow.
By then, the large cash flow and financial assets the club had would become Bartomeu's ammunition to refute the critics. As for the specific debt figures and player wages, who could explain them clearly?
Didn't Laporta say he would renew Messi's contract immediately after being elected?
Would Laporta even have the time or energy to go after his predecessor?
...While Barcelona's management held private discussions in the stands, the match on the pitch had reached the 63rd minute, and Leeds United launched another attack.
Sancho dribbled horizontally, cutting inside from the right, and then passed back to Valverde.
The Uruguayan midfielder passed it across to Enzo Fernández.
This made everyone think Leeds were preparing to attack Barcelona's right side, where Rashford was positioned.
But unexpectedly, when Enzo Fernández got the ball, he paused while facing the right, then, just as Achraf Hakimi sprinted forward on the right flank, delivered a diagonal long pass straight to the right side of the penalty area, behind Barcelona's defense.
Achraf Hakimi charged forward at full speed, racing past Alba and breaking into the right side of the penalty area. After catching up to Enzo Fernández's long pass, he crossed from the edge of the six-yard box.
The ball skimmed across the six-yard line.
Lenglet slid in to block it but failed to make contact. Haaland, rushing in from the middle, tapped it in with his left foot.
"Goallllllllllllllllllll!!!"
"Haaland, it's Haaland again!!!"
"This is already his fifth goal!!!"
"Five goals in one match!"
"This is absolutely a stunning performance."
"From the slow-motion replay, we can see that Leeds United's tactical coordination was very clever. Enzo Fernández's long pass was incredibly precise, and Achraf Hakimi's late run was very dangerous."
"Haaland calmly seized the opportunity and completed his fifth goal!"
"This makes him the third player in Champions League history to score five goals in a single knockout stage match."
"The last player to do this was also in this very stadium tonight, Barcelona's Messi!"
"We don't know how Messi feels at this moment, watching Haaland score his fifth goal, especially since it was scored right under his nose, into Barcelona's net."
"But I believe Messi must be feeling terrible inside."
"This is Camp Nou, but tonight, it has completely become Leeds United's stage."
"In the stands, Barcelona fans are booing furiously. But it's hard to say whether they're booing Leeds United, their own players, or someone else."
"6-0. Another crushing scoreline."
"Barcelona truly needs to reflect deeply. Consecutive devastating defeats in the knockout rounds clearly point to a serious problem."
"We see that Leeds United appears to be preparing a substitution. Veteran captain Vardy is getting ready to come on."
"But we also see Haaland waving furiously toward the sideline. It looks like he's not done yet and wants to stay on the pitch to score more."
"He looks like he wants to break Messi's record, right in front of Messi!"
(To be continued.)