Too good to be true. Barça were impeccable with the equal forces, but too much yellow time when they were outnumbered. The fantasy lasted half an hour, built on firm pillars that gave continuity to the hopeful function of Paris. The Blaugrana team repeated the feeling of a ready and mature team until Araújo got away with the revolutions. The referee could have helped by being more condescending with the Uruguayan’s action, but he took the red card out of his pocket and Barça from the game. Hyperventilation, highly ill-advised on nights like this, mowed down Xavi’s path in this Champions League. PSG, club with prefabricated history and economy doped by Qatar, got away with it. Skilled in the upper echelons, where he already has his nose in UEFA, he enjoyed a velvety second leg thanks to the sending off and other details (penalty in favor and non-pointed penalty to Gündogan that could have been whistled), while Laporta’s Barça, flag bearer of the Superliga, artifact of a futility that reaches parodies, paints little where he was the king.
The phrase that prays that it is better to play with ten than with eleven, attributed to Helenio Herrera, was a condemnation this time. Barça didn’t just lose a man, his world was overshadowed, his ideas were blinded. His was too much disorientation, especially considering that when the collision occurred, he still had the score in his favor.
Until Raphinha’s goal, Barça had camouflaged themselves very well. There are days that to carry out according to what exercises you need to release DNA like someone who falsifies a passport in view of a border populated by agents of evil. The current Barça is not characterized by being full of cracks and they had the advantage of a favorable goal that needed to be protected. So the approach was the right one. It basically consisted of escorting the ball like a loved one and, in case of theft by the opponent, fighting to recover it from solidarity, aid and physical deployment. The final part to be added to the score had to consist of selecting the attacks, that is, launching offensives without losing order. And this too was executed following the route plan. Lamine Yamal dodged his full-back as if it were the youth and not the other way around, and crossed for Raphinha’s knee-jerk finish. (Clarification: in football, when you go with everything, goals are scored with the knee).
Araújo’s rise of revolutions put an end to all that and kept Barça without thinking for too long. Yamal’s sacrifice was a pity, a footballer who knows what to do with the ball with any ambush. It was a shame to see Barça disfigured so quickly and Xavi lose his footing while the game, calmly, could have been a different one.
Barça gave too many minutes to PSG. He surrendered in advance. This seemed to be the case when, regaining his senses and some order already in the final stretch of the match and with 1-3, he had his moments to balance the tie. Sometimes you have to wait patiently for football and Barça, blocked for too long, realized this too late. PSG wasn’t that good. But Barça aren’t that bad either.
