Wasteful Barca let Napoli off the hook, says Xavi

MUNICH • Xavi Hernandez was left to rue Barcelona's failure to convert chances as the Spanish giants were held to a 1-1 draw by Napoli in their Europa League knockout stage play-off tie on Thursday.

Piotr Zielinski gave Napoli the lead in the 29th minute at the Nou Camp before forward Ferran Torres equalised in the 59th minute from the penalty spot.

Barcelona were on the front foot throughout with their new attacking trio formed by new signings Torres, Adama Traore and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, but they missed several chances to turn the match around against the Italians.

"I'm sad because it makes me angry that (Barcelona) missed so many (chances) because it's a game to win," said Xavi, whose side are playing in the second-tier Europa League for the first time in 18 years after crashing out of the Champions League.

"I think that the only thing that we lacked was to convert the chances. We were good in the high press. After going behind, we generated 20 chances and six or seven were very clear.

"(It was) a complete game. The result should be a victory and, being fair, by at least a couple of goals."

The Catalans had 21 shots on goal but only five were on target. In contrast, Napoli managed just four shots but all were on target.

Napoli coach Luciano Spalletti felt that his side underperformed in the second half. "The first half was even, but we struggled after the restart," he said. "If we did well for 45 minutes, we can do it for 90. We weren't able to keep up our discipline."

Barcelona travel to Naples for the second leg next week.

Elsewhere, Borussia Dortmund coach Marco Rose said his players will have to deal with a "difficult task" in the second leg of their play-off tie after a shock 4-2 loss to Rangers at home.

Underdogs against the Bundesliga giants, Scottish champions Rangers stunned the crowd at the Signal Iduna Park, taking control of the tie ahead of the return leg in Glasgow.

Rose admitted that Dortmund have problems to fix in both attack and defence.

"We had too little drive going forward in the first half, too few runs in behind and we didn't get into the areas we wanted to," he said. "The scenario for the second leg is difficult. We lost by two goals at home. There is no longer an away-goals rule - that may help us a bit.

"Today, we did not do our job well. We will prepare ourselves so that we will try to seize the opportunity we still have."

Rangers were 3-0 up by the 49th minute thanks to goals from James Tavernier, Alfredo Morelos and John Lundstram. Jude Bellingham got one back for Dortmund before an own goal from Dan-Axel Zagadou made it 4-1 to the Scots. Raphael Guerreiro was the other scorer for Dortmund.

In the Europa Conference League, Leicester City thrashed Denmark's Randers 4-1 at home while Norwegian side Bodo/Glimt claimed a shock 3-1 win over Celtic in Scotland.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE