Xavi breathed a sigh of relief. The Barça coach had had a bad time, rushed in the first half, then rehabilitated, when his team reacted.
“At times we have played very well and at times we have to play better. Sometimes I get desperate because we are not doing what we have to. When I talk about construction I mean that things are missing. There are very young players, we have had a good second half but in the “The first half was difficult, we suffered and Unionistas did not look like a lesser team at many times. We gained confidence and morale.”
“I turned to the bench and said it,” he responded when asked about the lack of opportunities and shots from his players: “When the others defend like this, we have players to shoot: Pedri, De Jong, Gündogan. The goal from Koundé it was a great goal because of that, because we dared. Everything costs, and this game was important. We have to win games to correct things.”
“We were tied and our rings are not falling,” he responded when asked about the incorporation of the heavyweights in the final stretch (Gündogan or Lewandowski): “We wanted to reach the final and win it. We football professionals understand that we all “The teams train. The goals we saw before are going to be very difficult for us to continue seeing. Now we defend and close the lines, everyone works hard.”
Jules Koundé has been as critical as Xavi. According to the Barça defender, “we lack intensity this year.”
“We have to communicate better and close the lines better. You can talk about the coach, but the players play and when there are bad results it is also our fault,” added Koundé, scorer of Barça’s second goal, who praised the rival’s entity. “They have eliminated Villarreal and Sporting, they are a dangerous opponent if you let them do it. It is a shame that we conceded a goal in the first half, but we reacted later.”
“When they took the lead, they made things difficult for us. Luckily, we scored the tie just before the break, and that has allowed us to approach things with a different spirit,” said Oriol Romeu, absent for several weeks. “I am Don’t worry, there are always ups and downs in a footballer’s career and now I have had to experience this. I have limited myself to continuing working to return.”
