Barça is a coin in the air. It is a team mired in its own chaos, a reflection of the club’s institutional situation. Incapable of controlling the games for 90 minutes, this season the Blaugrana always travel through the terrain of uncertainty and Balaídos, against Celta, was no exception. It seemed that the famous reaction heralded by Xavi had continuity in a good first half, with a goal on the stroke of half-time from Lewandowski, but in the second half all the ghosts appeared, again with Iago Aspas as the executioner. The result danced again because of the details, because of the mistakes, and as it happened in Las Palmas, the Barcelona roulette offered an agonizing triumph thanks to a penalty in the added converted by the Polish ram, which failed in the first attempt , but in the repetition of the maximum penalty, because Guaita had advanced, he did not fail. Barça continues to hang on by a thin thread in the League, although seeing the lack of solidity of the team, only the witches believe that they can revalidate the title.
Xavi’s disciples joined the Galician day of reflection, prior to the regional elections, and corrected the sins committed in other trips in the first few minutes. The staging wasn’t bad. But just as politicians do, the convincing initial proposal fell into oblivion as the minutes passed. The match script was predictable. The Blaugrana shuffled the ball, while the Celestials waited in retreat to hunt for a counterattack. In the beginning, both were comfortable in their respective roles. Barça abused the safety pass, aware that a lost ball endangered the defence, its weakest link. The visitors’ patience paid off little by little, meter by meter. The first attempt on Vigo’s goal came in the ten minutes with a shot by Lamine Yamal that was rejected by Guaita. The home reaction came in a good transition culminating in a poor shot from Larsen, one of the few actions Ter Stegen was involved in during the first 45 minutes. To the good treatment with the ball, Barça added intensity in the split balls and thus, after a steal by De Jong, Vitor Roque had a great situation to score. The Brazilian, starting for the first time for Blaugrana, had a lot of fun, just like in another triangulation in the area where he couldn’t shoot.
Unconsciously, Celta, a team with emergencies and with their coach, Rafa Benítez, in dispute, found themselves stuck in their area, at the mercy of the visitor’s success. And when the Celestials already sensed the break, Lewandowski appeared, in the 45th, to open the scoring. The Pole remembered the old days. He got rid of Starfelt with targeted control and won the space to connect a powerful shot, impossible for Guaita.
But after the restart, coinciding with the replacement of an injured Araújo by Iñigo Martínez, all the good work went to waste in a minute due to the umpteenth disconnection. Mingueza, trained at the Masia, stood at the front of the area very easily and had time to make a spur pass to pass the ball to an Aspas completely alone. Moaña’s, who scored ten goals against Blaugrana, equalized with a shot that deflected Koundé into the back of the net. The goal allowed the Celestials to grow and made Barça lose their roles that forgot the plan with which they started the match. Possession passed from one side to the other without control and the match became a chain of inaccuracies that favored the Galicians, who reached the Blaugrana goal several times.
The calm that Barça radiated in the first half turned into tension. Iñigo Martínez asked for explanations, just like Koundé. Lewandowski was talking to Ter Stegen during a stoppage to correct mistakes. The Blaugrana played the last quarter of an hour of the match as if the victory was not urgent, but a naivety of Fran Beltrán, who kicked Lamine Yamal when he tried to get the ball away, opened the way for them to win . Guaita saved Lewandowski’s first shot. The stands erupted with euphoria until the VAR warned of the forward position of the Valencia goalkeeper. A few centimeters that saved Barça from another disappointment. On Wednesday, however, the Champions League arrives. Wait for Naples. A fervent Diego Armando Maradona. Important words for this Barça.
