Ousmane Dembélé will have been happiest with Pedri, the scorer of the winning goal. Of all the balls that the French international laid out for his teammates, only the little Spanish star finished one. And he still had by far the most work to do, by putting the ball in front of his right leg… It was the perfect prelude to the first meeting with Eintracht Frankfurt in the quarterfinals of the Europa League next week.
The first big chance for a pass from Dembélé was for Frenkie de Jong. The Orange international, who got Camp Nou on the benches after a few seconds with a wonderful passing movement, headed over a cross from Ousmane Dembélé within twelve minutes. The Frenchman also faced Karim Rekik (27). The 4-time international was the left back of Sevilla, where former Ajax midfielder Nemanja Gudelj was also a basic player, and had to curb Barça’s French assist gun.
That Dembélé did not have one to his name after half a game could be called a small miracle. In addition to the cross to Frenkie de Jong, he served Ferran Torres just before half-time with a header from a pass by Pedri, but Torres came up just short from close range. Moments later, the French international Pierre-Emerick sent Aubameyang into the deep. The striker was looking for the far corner with his bet, but Sevilla goalie Yassine Bounou was able to save. Aubameyang was grounded by Jules Koundé minutes earlier in the penalty area, but referee José María Sánchez Martínez and his assistants, including the VAR, immediately waved the incident away. And that was quite dubious. Halfway through the first half, they rightly saw no penalties in the cases where Rekik on one side and Ronald Araujo on the other were shot in the arm in the penalty area.
Missing Torres
Barcelona only became dangerous again in the 63rd minute, when Dembélé again reached Ferran Torres from the right. This time, the Spanish international fired over a Sevilla defender. Less than two minutes later, Torres again fired high. Everything shows that he is a great football player, but Torres has a crazy habit of wanting to shoot just about every ball in the top right corner. Hard or slightly less hard, but especially often impure. That breaks the 55 million euro attacker and also Barça at times. The fact that he gets into firing position so often also says that his productivity could be boosted considerably.
After 68 minutes, Gerard Piqué headed the cross over from Dembélé’s cross. Two minutes later, the latter almost scored the 1-0 at the far post, from a pass by Sergio Busquets. After 72 minutes there was Pedri who broke the spell for the Catalans. Dembélé almost had his second assist four minutes later, but Torres headed another great cross from the Frenchman to goalkeeper Bounou.
Shortly after, it was Memphis’ turn. As a replacement for Aubameyang, he was allowed to participate for ten minutes against Sevilla and will undoubtedly be able to focus on more playing time in the coming period. Luuk de Jong and Sergińo Dest were absent against Sevilla due to injuries.