Barça is a coin in the air. It is a team immersed in its own chaos, a reflection of the institutional situation of the club. Unable to govern the games for 90 minutes, this season the Blaugrana always walk through the wire of uncertainty and in Balaídos, against Celta, it was no exception. It seemed that the famous reaction preached by The result once again danced pending the details, the errors, and, as happened in Las Palmas, the Barcelona roulette produced an agonizing victory (1-2) thanks to a penalty in the added time converted by the Polish striker, who missed in the first attempt but in the repetition of the maximum penalty, as Guaita had advanced, he did not forgive. Barça continues to hold on to the League by a thin thread, although seeing the lack of solidity of the team, only the friends believe that it can retain the title.
Xavi’s pupils joined the Galician day of reflection, prior to the regional elections, and corrected the sins committed in other trips in the first minutes. The staging was not bad. But just as politicians do, the convincing initial proposal fell into oblivion as the minutes passed. The game script was predictable. The Blaugrana amassed the ball, while the light blue team waited in retreat to hunt for a counterattack. From the beginning, both were comfortable in their respective roles.
Barça abused the safety pass, aware that a lost ball would put its defense in check, the weakest link in the Barcelona chain.
The patience of the visitors was paying off little by little, meter by meter. The first attempt on the Vigo goal came after ten minutes with a shot by Lamine Yamal that Guaita repelled. The local reaction came in a good transition culminated with a faulty shot by Larsen, one of the few actions where Ter Stegen intervened in the first 45 minutes. By doing well with the ball, Barça added intensity in the divided balls and thus, after a great steal by De Jong, Vitor Roque had an unbeatable situation to define. But the Brazilian, a starter for the Blaugrana for the first time, dallied too much, just like in another triangulation inside the area where he couldn’t get his leg together.
Unconsciously, Celta, a team also in urgent need and with its coach, Rafa Benítez, in dispute, found itself increasingly stuck in its area, at the mercy of the visitor’s success in the last pass. And when the sky blues already sensed the break, Lewandowski appeared, in the 45th minute, to open the scoring. The Pole remembered the one from years ago. He got rid of Starfelt with an oriented control and gained the space to connect a powerful shot, impossible for Guaita’s stretch.
But after the restart, coinciding with the replacement of an injured Araújo by Iñigo Martínez, all the good work of the first half went to waste in one minute due to the team’s umpteenth disconnection this season. Mingueza, trained at La Masia, stood on the edge of the area with great ease and had time to use his spur to give the ball to a completely alone Iago Aspas. The one from Moaña, always a hammer against the Blaugrana, scorer of ten goals, tied the score with a shot that Koundé deflected before it lodged in the net.
The goal allowed the celestial team to grow and made a Barça team lose their temper, forgetting the plan with which they started the game. Possession passed from one side to the other without control and the match became a chain of inaccuracies that favored the Galicians, who surrounded the three Blaugrana posts several times.
The calm that Barça radiated in the first half turned into tension. Iñigo Martínez asked for explanations, just like Koundé. Lewandowski spoke with Ter Stegen taking advantage of a break to correct errors. The Blaugrana went through the last quarter of an hour of the game as if the victory was not urgent, but a naivety by Fran Beltrán, who kicked Lamine Yamal in the area in his attempted clearance, paved the way for Barça’s victory.
Guaita saved the first maximum penalty taken by Lewandowski to his left, at mid-height. The stands exploded with euphoria until the VAR warned of the advanced position of the Valencian goalkeeper at the time of the shot. A few centimeters that saved the Barcelona fans from the umpteenth disappointment this season. On Wednesday, however, the Champions League arrives. Naples waits. An excited Diego Armando Maradona. Big words for this Barça.
Check all the results of the EA Sports League.
Celta: Guaita; Mingueza (Kevin, min. 85), Starfelt, Carlos Domínguez (Unai Núñez, min. 46), Ristic (Manu Sánchez, min. 58); Allende (Swedberg, min. 77), Tapia, Beltrán, De la Torre; Aspas, Larsen (Douvikas, min. 85)
Barcelona: Ter Stegen; Kounde, Araujo (Inigo Martinez, 46th min), Cubarsi, Cancelo; De Jong, Christensen (Gündogan, 57th minute), Pedri (Fermin, 75th minute); Yamal (Romeu, 99 mins), Vitor Roque (Raphinha, 57 mins), Lewandowski
Goals: 0-1, m.44: Lewandowski. 1-1, m.46: Blades. 1-2, m.97: Lewandowski, penalty.
Referee: Pulido Santana (Canarian committee). He cautioned Allende (min. 15), Christensen (min. 38), De Jong (min. 93), Ter Stegen (min. 94) and Íñigo Martínez (min. 100) for Barcelona.
Incidents: Match corresponding to the twenty-fifth day of LaLiga EA Sports played at the Abanca Balaídos stadium in front of 23,096 spectators. A minute of silence was held in memory of Rafael Álvarez Alarcia, former Celta goalkeeper in the 1970s.
