The club captain has hailed the Spanish side after their qualification for the Champions League, but was left ruing the poor end to last week’s first leg
Philipp Lahm saluted an “extraordinary” Barcelona after his Bayern Munich were eliminated from the Champions League by Luis Enrique’s side.
Bayern won Tuesday’s semi-final second leg 3-2 at the Allianz Arena, but Barca’s 3-0 first-leg win ensured progression to the Berlin final for the Spaniards.
And Lahm admitted the gap was just too big to bridge against the world’s most in-form outfit.
“As a player you always believe in miracles. But you can’t request anything, it’s not that easy,” Lahm told Sky.
“Barcelona are an extraordinary team, and they convert their chances. We gave everything we had, we showed determination. Our game looked a lot better today, we created many chances in the first half. But we did not lose the tie today.”
Bayern had held Barca to a scoreless first leg until the final 13 minutes at the Camp Nou only to concede three late goals, and the Bayern skipper insisted it was in those closing stages in Spain that the tie was lost.
“Maybe the last two minutes in Barcelona cost us the final,” he added. “If you return home with a 1-0 loss, many things are possible compared to a 3-0 loss. We did not go out against a bad team but a team that had every player availabe and was at its peak.”
Barcelona will face either Real Madrid or Juventus in the Champions League final at Berlin’s Olympiastadion on June 6.