If Barça had greased their foot, yesterday they would have taken the three points Mestalla. Unlike the last games, the team knew how to attack, get to the area, show their fangs, but in the shot they were soft. In other times, a game like the one in Valencia was resolved by Messi as if nothing had happened. With the Argentine living another life, the forwards saw the frame blurred. It’s the first thing he regretted Xavi Hernandez when going before the media to explain the match and the result.
«We have lacked a lot of effectiveness. It has been alarming. We have generated situations that are clear enough to dominate the game. A shame. “I feel very frustrated,” he said. Xavi, in the only possible reading of the meeting. At another time he used the word “flagrant” to define the absence of concreteness. But she went overboard again when she assured that “what happened to us is a summary of the season. “We must be the most effective team in Europe.” It’s hard to find another Barça game with the volume of chances created in Valencia in this grade.
Lewandowski – who looked a fresher version than other recent matches -, Ferran Torres, Gundogan and Raphinha, who perhaps had the clearest chance, missed opportunities that looked like they were feasible. Curiously, the only one who scored, Joao Félix, seemed to be the least intense and successful player in the match. Poor performance by the Portuguese.
The good way
It was not possible to imagine a shake-up in the lineup and there was none. Maximum continuity. It would not have been consistent with the coach’s speech, who considers that his team has been up to par this season, that the game has been drinkable and whoever did not think that, whoever demanded more, was living in an “unreality.” He felt vindicated in his decision apparently in Valencia. “They have shown that we are on the right path in terms of play.”
Despite his words in recent days, Barça was generally worrying. «We lacked the shot on goal. We have improved a lot, against Girona we did not play well,” admitted Pedri, another voice in disagreement with the public opinion of Xavi.
But yesterday the mantra of lack of precision was justified and covered up the error of attitude and forcefulness in the Valencian team’s goal, quite unacceptable, arising from a rained ball, one of those that are usually easy to clear. “A specific error,” Xavi described it, focusing the speech on what happened in the other area.
“It does not taste like anything”
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Now the league championship is going uphill. “It’s a draw that leaves us dissatisfied,” said the Terrassa coach. He delved into it Joao Cancelo. «It is a point that tastes like nothing. We were much superior. We had very clear chances and we didn’t know how to score them. Now things in the League are getting very difficult for us.” The Portuguese full-back was extremely self-critical: «Barça is a club that is used to winning and now we are going through a very difficult time. “There is a lot of pressure and it is not easy.”
Barça is six points behind Girona and four behind Madrid with one more game. It is likely that by the end of the day this Sunday there will be more. It certainly no longer seems like an accessible League.