Barcelona falls in Milan against Inter and gets into trouble in the Champions League

He got into a mess Barca in Milan. A weak Barça that came out stunned after conceding another defeat in Europe. One more. The problem is that the team Xavi he lacked game and hierarchy, feeling so vulnerable that he left depressed. He is not worth the alibi of the penalties that the VAR did not see nor did he want to whistle already in the added time of a sad night, another one. Barça was right because the hand of dumfries existed and the push then to Lewandowski also. But it is not a sufficient argument to explain that painful stumbling block that must be remedied in the Camp Nou within a week if you don’t want to be confined to exile from the Europa League.

And that Barça was warned. Warned because his initial control in the first part was fading. Warned because Inter did not want to have the ball. I didn’t need it either. He waited patiently around the area of Onana, who lived a peaceful initial 45 minutes. Warned Barça followed until a play, already in added time, portrayed the indolence, punished with the goal of Çalhanoglu. A sniper, owner of a powerful and distant time, to whom he gave all the time in the world to adjust his coordinates with a right hand that liquidated Xavi’s team. He didn’t get to that shot Busquets to cross his line, he didn’t reject him either Eric Garciasheltered in the area, and Ter Stegen, no matter how much he stretched himself, would never reach that very tight shot that licked the right post with such precision that the ball curled up next to the side net.

The old Meazza, a stadium with a soul, which seems to suck the players out of how vertical and imposing it is, began to tremble with that Interista goal. And Xavi, meanwhile, went to the locker room angry because Barça’s personality lasted barely a quarter of an hour. Also, the ‘ousmane system‘ didn’t work. Balls to Dembélé, punctured in the lime, next to the right wing, and to cross his fingers so that he someday, only sometime, chose well. Until 20, yes, 20!!, possessions lost the Barça striker. Inzaghi, who chose two lightweight forwards (Lautaro and Correa) to move Barca’s strange defense, was happy that the plan worked out for him. At least in the first half. Xavi; No.

Innovation behind three

He innovated with a defense of three that was actually four, located Sergio Robert as a right back, holding back, hardly appearing to attack because that flank corresponded to Dembele. His was the responsibility. And Ousmane assumed it to the point of being almost irresponsible because he damaged Barça tactically and emotionally – he lost the ball and then did not help in solidarity behind -, while Raphinha, in a strange left-handed inside role, had no influence on the match.

For Marcos Alonso, that double role (side that doubled more as a left winger) did not help him too much either. The party then entered into a maddened correcalle, the “lurches & rdquor; What would Xavi say, where Inter was the happiest guy in the old Meazza, a stadium with an expiration date (it should be demolished in 2026 to make way for the new ‘Cathedrale’), putting Barça under suspicion. To the old and also old Barça, a team that every time it crosses the Pyrenees is reunited with that eternal melancholy that returns to the dismal nights. It is hardly necessary to remember them because they know them by heart: Rome, Liverpool, Lisbon…

Before Inter’s goal, there was a play that altered the landscape of the game. Barça got scared when the VAR saved them from a penalty that Eric García had committed with his hand. It was released because Lautaro had been offside. It wasn’t a goal, but it had a similar impact because the game slipped out of Xavi’s team’s hands. If he ever had it. The photo of the defense was completed in the second half with the injury of Christensen, who was forced to ask for the change. I enter Piquewho in just two weeks has gone from being the fifth and marginal center-back in the squad to being the second, converted into an emergency solution in Milan.

lewandowski, offline

Meanwhile, the Barça coach modified the role of the wingers. He moved Dembélé to the left flank and placed Raphinha, already as a pure winger, abandoning the interior invention, on the right. The Frenchman lost two balls and at third option he released a left-footed shot that repelled Onana’s post. At match time, Barça’s first big chance. And only until then. Then, with the entry of Ansu Fati for the Brazilian striker, Ousmane returned to his home on the right side. And what the VAR saved you in Eric’s penalty, the VAR took away from you by canceling Pedri’s goal by previous hand, or so the technology understood it, by Ansu.

With the changes, Barça managed to push Inter to Onana’s house pushing, now yes, with Pedri’s criteria and Gavi’s energy, although, and that was the big problem, Lewandowski was still disconnected. Very disconnected from the match and, most worryingly, from the Barça game. But the VAR, on the other hand, did not see Dumfries’ hand in added time, unsuccessfully protested by Barça. The referee did not even approach the screen, in addition to not detecting another penalty in a push against Lewandowski.

With those controversial plays resolved against him is not enough to explain the poor football of Xavi’s team, stuck against Inter of the three centrals. He was left in the dark.

The datasheet

INTER: Onana (6), Skriniar (6), De Vrij (6), Bastoni (6), Darmian (5), Mkhitaryan (5), Barella (6), Çalhanoglu (8), Di Marco (7), Correa ( 6) and Lautaro (6).

Coach: Simone Inzaghi (6)

Changes: Dzeko (6) by Correa (m. 56); Dumfries (5) by Di Marco (d. 76); Acerbi (5) by De Vrij (m, 76); Gosens (5) by Darmian (d. 76); Asllani (sc) by Çalhanoglu (d. 84)

BARCELONA: Ter Stegen (5), Christensen (5), Eric García (5), Marcos Alonso (4), Sergi Roberto (4), Busquets (5), Gavi (4), Pedri (6), Raphinha (4), Lewandowski (4) and Dembele (5).

Coach: Xavi Hernandez (4)

Changes: Piqué (4) by Christensen (d. 57); Bucket (5) by Marcos Alonso (d. 64); Ansu Fati (5) for Raphinha (m. 64); Kessié (sc) by Gavi (d. 83)

goals: 1-0, Çalhanoglu (d. 45+2);

Referee: Slavko Vincic (5), Slovenian.

Related news

Yellow cards: Barella (m. 22); Busquets (m. 59); Xavi (d. 68); Çalhanoglu (d. 69); Gavi (d. 76); Lautaro (d. 76); Inzaghi (d. 80); Bastoni (d. 87); Onana (d. 90 + 4)

Stadium: San Siro.

ttn-24