Get to the game and kiss the saint. Show up and resolve. Go out and decide. Vitor Roque finally found his day to illuminate a dark and anguished Barça. In the first game since Xavi revealed that he was leaving at the end of the season, the Brazilian, the only winter signing, made a sensational leap. He holed out a service with his head from the outside of Cancelo and screamed with happiness. It was his directorial debut as a Barça player. Meanwhile, Barcelona fans eased up. In the match that was pending, Barça beat Osasuna and has accumulated five points ahead of fifth place, Athletic. That is now the League of a stiff and minimal Barcelona.
Because before Vitor Roque scored, there was not even a hint of reaction. Not even Xavi Hernández’s announcement. Nor the alleged conspiracy in Lewandowski’s house. Not even the four variants in the lineup. Nothing changed for an hour for Barça, who returned to action without joy, without ideas and, ultimately, without football. A dry, barren, opaque panorama. No matter how much the Blaugrana coach clapped his hands on the sidelines to try to encourage his boys. Some boys who convey their affection to him in public and in private but who, later, on the grass are not able to wake up.
Cubarsí appeared for Christensen. Canceled by Héctor Fort. Pedri for Oriol Romeu. And Ferran Torres for the injured João Félix. But since Barça had a one-eyed look, the match had barely been uncorked when Ferran Torres, disconsolate, had to head into the locker room tunnel due to a muscle injury, the umpteenth time the team has suffered this season. It rains in the wet because Barça was already facing the match with eight casualties.
He was applauded by the audience, who showed up in good numbers, taking into account what was offered, and who showed themselves somewhere between generous and passive, without express references to Xavi, until the 60th minute.
No news in the stands or on the field. In the entire first half, Barça did not generate a real chance. Some attempt by a mobile and willful Fermín, which at least gave him guts. Some well-filtered passes through Lamine Yamal, more contained in the overflow than other days. Three deflected headers…and almost nothing more to put in the mouth. Where was the leadership of De Jong or Gündogan? Where had Pedri’s magic gone? What happened to Lewandowski’s gunpowder? They are the heavyweights left available and they only generated questions that were lost in the night of Montjuïc.
It was enough for Osasuna to withdraw in a tight and orderly manner to short-circuit any advance by a Barça with a flat encephalogram. The Navarrese only had one option until the intermission in a corner that Budimir finished off but they trusted that time would work in their favor, especially due to Barcelona’s nervous state.
In general, everything was an ordeal, almost impossible to watch if you didn’t have to write about it, but Xavi, with so many absences, didn’t have many bullets left in the chamber, other than Vitor Roque. The Brazilian, who in the short time he had played had shown little or less, would be capital. Just at the moment when there were already whistles among the public and when the cheering stands responded by chanting for Xavi Hernández Vitor Roque rose to give him the switch and give Barça the advantage. He had just come on for Fermín, in a change that was not understandable due to the youth squad’s fieryness, a piece of play, and he headed into the net. He celebrated the fans, hungry for good news, and the footballers celebrated him. The panorama opened up and could do more when Vitor Roque himself would cause the second yellow card and subsequent expulsion of Unai García, who clearly grabbed him. Less than half an hour to play, 1-0 winning and against ten. In the midst of effervescence, Lamine Yamal squandered a very clear opportunity (new fight from Lewandowski).
Of course, Osasuna bordered on a tie with a shot from Raúl García that hit the post and another from Moncayola that was thwarted by Iñaki Peña. Even so, Barça suffered and Xavi brought Oriol Romeu into the fray in search of a break. Between blood, sweat, bailing balls and with many physical problems, since Cancelo and Lamine Yamal ended up injured, the Barcelona team won. Without further ado. But he won.
