Lewandowski, with a goal in added time, camouflages everything

Short sleeve night and thousands of people crowding the old Mestalla, a stadium that looks like a boiler. A stadium that is about to celebrate its 100th anniversary, capable as it has historically been of scaring Barça. It doesn’t matter what Barça. Be the great Barça of Guardiola. Or the vertical Barça of Luis Enrique or the Barça of Xavi, who is in constant construction process”. The Barça team got off to a somewhat lukewarm start, overcome by the atmosphere and the intensity exhibited by Gattusso’s players.

The Game Winner pic.twitter.com/KhJRKVku8n

– FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) October 29, 2022

The teams are the mirror of the soul of their coaches. And this Valencia only understands football as a way to run, although it went out too soon. That was a merit of the order established by Barça, supported, last night, in the interiors. They dominated and ruled the party Pedri, who returned to his position as inside right, and Frenkie de Jong, positioned as a left-handed midfielder. It was not, curiously, the Barça of the extremes, conditioned, moreover, by the bad choices taken by Dembélé, the only pure specialist. A rebel who transforms his game into a treaty of misunderstanding. An infinite exercise of impatience and lack of control. Anchored next to the lime, the French received the ball well and had a bad time. As simple as it was torturing for his own companions, desperate as they were. And even Xavi, his staunchest defender, fell into anguish when he saw, over and over again, that “neatness & rdquor ;, the keyword of his method of play, was betrayed with treachery and nocturnality. Ousmane lost up to 12 balls in the first 45 minutes.

A team with control, but without danger

Prisoner of their haste, Valencia was tamed with Barca control, who huddled the ball to silence the raucous and noisy Mestalla. Despite the fact that Barça could not achieve that dominance. A lot of control, but little shot (seven, one on goal and another at the post, Lewandowski’s header) because the lines were not well synchronized. At the start, Kluivert acted as Busquets’ bodyguard, together with Cavani’s injury (he suffered a blow to his right ankle when not even the 20th minute had been reached), which broke the daring plan designed by Gattuso.

For the win! #ValenciaBarça pic.twitter.com/UITSN9I970

– FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) October 29, 2022

Through the courage of Balde, who does not miss playing on the right side being a closed left-hander as he is, he found the way to push the Valencian team to the home of Mamardashvili, that giant who is his goalkeeper. The Georgian goalkeeper got nervous the pressure ordered by Xavi and his feet seemed to wear wooden clogs. After the first act, Barça had reason to be more than angry because it was sterile to silence all of Valencia. A lot of control, a lot of government, but little efficiency. A problem because producing a lot and not getting anything out is very bad business.

Eric and Koundé, injured

Xavi realized that business could get worse and made a triple change when the Mestalla summer clock didn’t even set the match time: Gavi for Busquets, Raphinha for Dembélé and Ferran Torres, whistled and reprimanded by his people, for Ansu Fati. Urgent measure because Barça started the second half asleep and Valencia lived excessively calm. But not even then did he take the thread of the game, while injured players were falling. First Eric; then Koundé. And Piqué, meanwhile, needed several minutes to put on his boots in a gesture that made the bench desperate, unable to remove the knot from the boots. There was no football entangled the night between discussions and controversies such as the disallowed goal, and rightly so, to Valencia by the hand of Marcos André who detected the VAR.

Related news

It was then that Gattuso from the band took over the meeting. He played what he wanted, finishing Xavi with a rear of circumstances formed by Balde, Piqué, Marcos Alonso and Alba. In attack it was a real disaster summed up on that double occasion with five minutes to go. Pedri’s center left Ferran Torres alone. But he finished against himself. Well, actually, it didn’t even finish. And then the ball, capricious she, fell before two strikers. Raphinha went ahead of Lewandowski and sent the ball into the Valencian street. See to believe! Two occasions in the small area of ​​​​a frightened Mamardashvili. It was goal or goal. Two goals in the same play. Two mistakes that made Xavi throw his head in his hands because he couldn’t understand such a mistake.

The game was dying, with a frustrating and hopeless game until the play ‘made in Madrid’ arrived. A goal in the last breath. A golden goal in added time because Raphinha invented a magical center finished off spectacularly by Lewandowski. The goal of a nine whose legs stretched out like a robot to change the direction of the ball to give Barça a victory that is a treasure. Although the treasure is to have Lewandowski, a goal hunter who camouflages all the dysfunctions of a convalescent team.