Three consecutive visits to San Sebastián crowned with victory, being real, were deceptive. They hid the three real tortures. Surely they did not have the dimension of the football beating that Real subjected Barça to last night, which they mistreated like a doll.
But it was added the fourth triumph. Thanks to a miracle that benefited the champion to take the spoils of the three points without even deserving the point they were getting with the tie. That miracle fell from the sky, but not from who it was supposed to be, but from someone made of flesh and blood. I was flying through the sky Ronald Araujo in an impetuous and desperate burst to catch that hanging ball in the only positive action of Ilkay Gundogan all night.
The miracle fell from the sky, but not from who it was supposed to be, but from someone made of flesh and blood. Ronald Araujo flew through the sky to head the score 0-1.
The idea of classic
Xavi wanted to maintain the idea of the classic, but the team’s outing on the field was nothing like it. It only seemed like the outcome, with a goal in added time that decided the duel in favor of the worst team. From the visitor in both cases. A week ago it was Madrid; this time, to Barça.
Just like Bellingham, Araujo He warned first with a howitzer that Remiro rejected, Gavi tried with an innocent shot and finally Araujo caused the local tragedy with an appearance that avoided not only a defeat: he avoided the crisis of Girona and Madrid being six points away.
Araujo continued as a winger, Fermín remained as an interior player and Cancelo once again became a winger. The addition of Koundé and Lewandowski was not a plus.
Barça of Granada
Xavi’s plans to perpetuate the device had no beneficial effect. It is true that Araujo continued at right back, that Fermín occupied the interior area and that Cancelo repeated as right winger, but Barça had nothing to do with it. The reinforcements of Koundé and Lewandowski as starters did not provide a plus either. On the contrary, The Frenchman gave a ball to Oyarzabal that could have cost him the first goal. Sorry, the second one.
However, Barça’s entry was similar to the one he perpetrated in Granada. A robbery against Gavi on the first possession marked the start of Los Cármenes. That day Bryan Zaragoza scored the goal after 18 seconds. Barrenetxea was able to score at 27 seconds. A great intervention by Ter Stegen prevented it. With his foot he prevented Koundé’s clumsiness from becoming the second goal. That corner was headed too cross by Merino and after a quarter of an hour Kubo had the fourth goal at his feet. It is no exaggeration. That’s how regrettable and shameful Barça’s entry on the pitch was. Unworthy.
Gündogan exposed himself with a terrible game that he barely made up for with the center of the goal.
Worthy of 4-0
A 4-0 in the first quarter of an hour would have been perfectly reasonable. Or at half-time, because in the next half hour, Barça only readjusted their defensive positions and reduced the monumental error rate. It cannot be said that the team started to play, but rather that they were able to escape the realistic harassment, tracing the Barça device: they were three against three in the center of the field, but it seemed like six against three. The defense was a calamity and the forward line did not exist.
Gündogan exposed himself. After lamenting the absence of anger after the defeat at Montjuïc, he could have expected a reaction of genius, his first for having pointed out the others. He lost the ball nine times in the opening half, which is insane for a midfielder supposedly of guarantees – for not giving them, Oriol Romeu was relieved, right? – and, above all, in the case of him, as a veteran and as an accused.
Exhausting the five substitutions would have been insufficient to promote sufficient regeneration to match the formidable Real.
Neither he nor anyone else exposed an ounce of rebellion, of bad temper for the dance to which they were being subjected. Barça was a weak team, without strength or pride, dominated and subjugated by Real, of whose entity everyone was warned.
A break to react
If the coach’s message had been ignored, and that could be one of the reasons for the preliminary disaster, Xavi had the opportunity to repeat it, reinforce it or change it at half-time. Those walls must have echoed because, at the very least, what they deserved to hear was a string of expletives and rudeness. But also solutions. A strong reaction was not enough, but a football response was essential.
Barça did not put together a decent play until the 90th minute and then they had three chances.
There was no glimpse of that collective rebound beyond the end of the harassment bleeding in Ter Stegen’s area. The words of the coach nor the introspection of the footballers were not enough, so the third option was substitutions. Exhausting all five would have been insufficient to promote sufficient regeneration to match the formidable Real that dominated Barça for the longest time and exhibited greater superiority in all facets. But with worse aim, calamitous incompetence, disastrous finishing skills.
Pedri and Ferran came in first and it didn’t work. Lamine Yamal and Raphinha burst in a while later, and neither did. The problem did not lie in the forwards, but in the game. Barça did not put together a decent play until the 90th minute and the proof was the three consecutive shots that, in the end, produced a supernatural phenomenon.
Data sheet
Real society: Remiro (6); Traoré (7), Zubeldia (6), Le Normand (5), Aihen (6);Brais (7), Zubimendi (7), Merino (7);Kubo (8), Oyarzabal (7), Barrenetxea (7) .
Technician: Imanol Alguacil (8).
Changes: Aritz (4) for Traoré (d. 63); Cho (sc) by Barrenetxea (d. 79); C. Fernández (sc) for Oyarzabal (d. 84).
FC Barcelona: Ter Stegen (9); Araujo (8), Koundé (4), Iñigo (6), Balde (5); Fermín (5), Gündogan (4), Gavi (6); Cancelo (4), Lewandowski (4), João Félix (4).
Coach: Xavi Hernández (4).
Changes: Ferran (5) for Fermín (d. 57); Pedri (4) for Lewandowski (d. 57); Raphinha (5) by Cancelo (d. 69); Lamine Yamal (sc) by João Félix (d. 69).
Goals: 0-1 (m. 92), Araujo.
Referee: Alberola Rojas (6), Castilian-Leonese.
Cards: João Félix, Brais, Iñigo, Zubeldia, Zubimendi, Gavi.
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Stadium: Anoeta.
Spectators: 37,555.