Barça won, but it is difficult to remember a similar incident report to achieve it, a sign that in the Champions League the Barça team is ready to compete again, but it will take some time to have a good time. Let’s review: eight yellow cards and one red (unusual); favorable VAR (in Europe, lately, also unusual); Lewandowski injury; tactical and metaphysical excursions of Cancelo; miraculous appearances by Koundé and Araújo, with ramps to add epicness, in order to avoid conceding goals; stomach upset and escape to the toilet of Lamine Yamal, who left everyone, even himself… There will be those who exclaim because of how expensive the triumph was. Another reading can be done. Let’s see her.
Missing the good players when winning avoids the suspicion of opportunism and makes it possible to justify a flawed match in terms of the game while raising the merit of a far from easy and much needed European victory. Xavi’s Barça are and will be asked (quite rightly) for a greater weight in their midfield to avoid uncontrolled games like last night’s, but the footballers best suited to disrupt the scene are out , injured Pedri and De Jong, the latter still with detractors who have arguments that the server does not understand, would give Barça a less nervous air, but it turns out that they are not there, so winning in Portugal, even if it is frowning, has a extraordinary value for the Blaugrana to face the season with less stress than in the last two campaigns at this time. Let’s remember, for those whose memory is failing, that Barça have not made it past the last two group stages of the Champions League, a competition they haven’t won in eight years. It comes from so low that you have to appreciate what you have. Two games, six points.
Xavi’s team suffered because it lacks the Dutchman and the Canary and because the triangle chosen to support the team was characterized more by its recovering instinct than by its ability to play with the ball. The central players were Koundé and Araújo and Oriol Romeu moved in front of them, who was out of tune in his international debut due to lack of habit. He opted for prevention, that’s true. Christensen, much finer at the start, was left sitting on the bench, so the transition between defense and attack was thicker than the chocolates they serve in Carrer Petritxol. These types of approaches, if they end well on the scoreboard, generate predictable heroes. It was Araújo and Koundé, saving so many scoring chances that Barça looked like something very different from what it should want to be. The Blaugrana survived, they knew how to compete, but to enter the list of favourites, they need a run. And also that two of the best return, which are Pedri and de Jong.
