Barcelona boss Luis Enrique takes blame for 'nightmare' defeat against Juventus

Barcelona boss Luis Enrique has said he is to blame for the club's 3-0 defeat to Juventus in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final.

Paulo Dybala scored twice in the first half and Giorgio Chellini added a third early in the second period at the Juventus Stadium to leave Barcelona with a mountainous task to reach the semi-finals.

The Catalan giants came back from a 4-0 first-leg deficit against Paris Saint-Germain in the round of 16 to triumph 6-5 on aggregate, but Enrique admitted that repeating the feat against the Italian champions next week at Camp Nou would be a tall order.

"It was a difficult first half, very similar to the one in Paris and the second was much better," he was quoted as saying by ESPN.

"If you gift the first half, then obviously you're going to have problems.

"A coach does everything to help the team and prepare them, but evidently I did not. We have to improve, learn from these mistakes, analyse the game carefully and realise where we went wrong.

"It's the second time this has happened. It's hard to think of a comeback, but we'll try to get back on our feet and put in a good performance in the second leg."

Enrique was especially scathing about his team's performance in the first half, describing it as a "nightmare" and a "shipwreck".

"I take responsibility 101 percent. We had better positioning in the second half, but the rival also let us have the ball. We created clear chances, but when you're having a nightmare like we had today you don't have that spark needed to take them," he said.

"I can't get the first half out my head. It's a shame because I saw the players with the intention to compete and to fight for the Champions League, but we've once again made errors."

Barcelona have now lost three of their last four away games in the Champions League and were also beaten 2-0 away at Malaga in La Liga at the weekend.

They host Real Sociedad at Camp Nou on 15 April before welcoming Juventus to Camp Nou for the second leg on 19 April.