To finish the warm-up, the Barcelona forwards have a ritual. They make the last sprint and go towards the front of the area, where they take a shot on goal that confirms to their superstitious self that they are going to have a great game. Robert Lewandowski’s first shot at Mestalla hit the crossbar. The second was saved by Kochen, the third goalkeeper, who withstood the battery of shots. The next three attempts were not between the posts. Only in the sixth did the Pole score, and he hit the net again in the seventh. That’s when he ended the session. There he could already sense that Barça’s number nine would not have an easy game in Valencia.
Xavi’s team doesn’t even get shots in during the warm-up. His Barcelona is bleeding in the areas, where games are slipping away without remedy. Part of his chances of being able to defend the League title he won last season have evaporated by wasting his best stretches of the game, by not being surgical when he had the rival in his hand and lacking instinct, while at the same time being unable to stop the hemorrhage of goals against.
There is no worse sin for a club that aims to become great again than forgiving too much and conceding too much. The perfect Storm. Without forcefulness or effectiveness there can be no control. Barça has a complex of those teams that soon find themselves in no man’s land, with nothing to fight for. And that, as Xavi is quick to remind, he still has his objectives intact in the four titles that are in contention. But in the one-on-one duels in the Champions League it is advisable to be consistent and devastating, dominate them with an iron fist and crush them.
The opponents take advantage of this naive talent, either because it gives them an advantage at the beginning or because it leaves them alive until the end. In the entire season in only six games did they go into half-time ahead on the scoreboard and it has been three months without winning a game by more than one goal difference. That only means one thing: suffering everywhere.
What happened at Mestalla is not new. For the artificial intelligence, the Blaugrana should have scored three goals on Saturday. But Barcelona is the team in the five major European leagues that misses the most clear chances, with 44, according to Opta data.
The statistics say that Barça almost needs 10 shots to score a goal (11.27% effectiveness), only Naples is worse. With 31 goals in the League, it is the worst start in 20 years. To find a worse one you have to go back to Rijkaard’s first season, with 23 goals.
In the Champions League he has scored 12 goals, five in his debut.
In total there are 43 goals in 23 games. Not even in his landing had Xavi seen a similar difficulty in capturing the chances. In the first 23 times that he sat on the bench, 44 were scored. These were the times of Luuk de Jong, Memphis, Demir, Jutglà and Abde, in addition to Ansu Fati.
Obviously, Barcelona lacked a lot of talent up front, something that was solved through signings and loans. Ferran Torres, Aubameyang and Adama arrived in January 2022. Six months later Lewandowski and Raphinha were hired. And in the summer of 2023, João Félix joined on loan. In total, when Vitor Roque is registered, the club will have paid 200 million between fixed and variables to reinforce the attack.
And the improvement, despite the wallet, is still insufficient. Raphinha has not scored since September in Mallorca. Lewandovski has not seen a visitor’s goal since the Pamplona penalty on September 3. João Félix was dry for 12 games and the one at Mestalla is his first goal away from Montjuïc while Ferran Torres is unreliable.
The last League was that of Lewandowski and Ter Stegen. At the moment, neither one nor the other because the German goalkeeper is injured. His replacement, Iñaki Peña, was only decisive against Atlético. Barça concedes more than one goal per game (25 in 23) in a defense plagued by injuries – the four centre-backs have been out of action (now Iñigo Martínez is) – and blunders, where Koundé has appeared in several photos. The combo is that in 17 games the Blaugrana have conceded one less goal (19) than in the entire last League (20 in 38). A sangria. Or worse, two. So can not be.
