Sergio Roberto has recognized the bad streak that Barcelona is going through, which this Sunday has lost the first classic of the season at the Bernabeu by 3 goals to 1: “Football often goes more by dynamics than by game and now it touches a negative dynamic ”, he confessed, along the same lines as Barça coach Xavi Hernández, who has also analyzed the Clásico from this perspective.
As one of the team captains, he has called for hope to be kept in this group: “We were leading and we shouldn’t burn everything down, I fully trust this team. We have another final on Thursday and we have to go for the three points and be all united, the fans, the team and the club”, he asked.
As for the game against the whites, he referred to the lack of intensity both in attack and defence, and the penalty given in the final stretch, when the score was 2-1: “It’s important to be forceful in both areas , and it was a shame. When we’ve had long possessions we’ve been able to create chances and when we were better at finding the equalizer, we found a penalty against us and it was impossible to equalise”.
Jules Koundé has been another of the Barça players who has come out in front of the cameras after the defeat at the Bernabeu. The French footballer has been “disappointed” by the result, “because of the effort made by the team and by the fans”, and has recognized that Madrid has been more effective: “We have not played a bad game but in the first part we have failed where they have been strong, in the transitions”. “Real Madrid knows how to suffer and is very dangerous. This is the strength of this team, that when they don’t have the ball and it seems that they are suffering, on two occasions they score two goals. We have to learn from this”, he acknowledged.
Koundé also referred to the penalty awarded to Real Madrid in the final minutes of the match: “The penalty? It’s very little [contact] I think, you have to see it repeated, but with the 2-1 it was difficult for us because maybe we would have had a chance to tie the game”.
For the French defender, “big games are played in the details”. An aspect that his teammate, Alejandro Balde, has also appealed to: “We have mastered a lot, but football is a matter of details and they have been more successful in this”. The 18-year-old Barça player played his first Clásico with Barça today: “I would have preferred to finish with a victory, but I’m very happy to have played my first Clásico”.
Balde described Eric Garcia’s penalty against Rodrygo as “doubtful” and believes that this action “has changed the game”. “We are screwed because nobody likes to lose a classic”, he has recognized before praising the rival: “They have known how to defend well and have had clear ideas”
After having lost almost all the chances of qualifying for the Champions League, Barça closes the week with a painful defeat in the classic against their eternal rival, but the message from the locker room is clear: “This is a long one, there is a lot of League left and we continue upstairs”, says Balde. For his part, Kounde affirms that he has “full confidence” in the team and asks the fans to trust. “Today we played well, we lacked something, but there is a lot of season left”.
