Analysis
Xavi’s team is already 16 points behind Madrid and they haven’t been so bad in the league since the 2002-2003 season
From bad to worse. This is how Barça’s season has been since the football season kicked off in August. The Barça team fell on Saturday at home to Betis and the ‘Xavi effect’, the one that was going to revive a project adrift, seems to be again at the mercy of the gale, waiting for a new wave to wreck the boat. The Catalans are seventh with only 23 points, figures that have not been experienced in the Catalan team since the 2002-2003 campaign, when they finished in sixth position.
“The flower is over and everything is over.” This is how Xavi summed up the defeat against Betis at the Camp Nou. Barça fell 0-1 and showed off each and every one of the problems that the Catalans have had throughout the season. The shallow depth of the past, the lack of a goal throughout the course and the defensive fragility, which culminated in Juanmi’s goal, leave Barcelona in a critical state of mind ahead of the Munich final against Bayern on Wednesday.
The defeat against Betis also serves to round off a more than disappointing start to the championship. The numbers were not lived in the Blaugrana club since the days of Louis van Gaal. And not exactly the good years of the Dutch, but the worst. It was 19 years ago. The culés began the course aimlessly and after 16 days they only added 22 points, a baggage that served to cease the former Ajax coach and sign Radomir Antic, a coach who with ups and downs managed to get the team into the UEFA Cup at the end of his career as sixth classified in the League.
That team and the current one have certain parallels. That Barça had said goodbye in a traumatic way to its great star, Rivaldo, and looked favorably on the emergence of new talents who came to the first team, such as Víctor Valdés, Xavi or Iniesta. They were the green shoots that today are the Araujo, Gavi, Nico or Abde, footballers who day after day try to get the chestnuts out of the fire to an aimless team.
The situation for Barça this season is even more dramatic as its great rival, Real Madrid, takes giant steps towards the league title. The whites are already 16 points ahead after their comfortable victory in San Sebastián against Real Sociedad, a team that currently marks the Champions League zone and is seven points above Xavi’s. Carlo Ancelotti’s team has marked an almost insurmountable distance and has reduced the morale of a squad that against Betis played against “a direct rival”, as Jordi Alba acknowledged.
When Memphis doesn’t show up
The duel against Betis also revealed the lack of a goal and the dependence of a footballer who until Saturday had been different from the rest in attack. Memphis had a gray game against the Verdiblancos and Xavi’s team accused him throughout the entire clash. The Dutchman was an island up front and players like Coutinho or Abde, both at the extremes, were unable to find him. «You have to help him understand the game. It helps us and stands out in depth, but we can’t find it. We generate things, but you have to be more aggressive. Getting ahead on the scoreboard is key today, “said Xavi about it after the game in relation to the Dutch striker.
The only positive aspect of the game against Betis was Ousmane Dembélé. The French winger changed the dynamics of the team in attack with his appearance in the second half, he generated the best chances and seems fully recovered for the grand final that Barça has in Munich. The ‘mosquito’ will be in a meeting that Ansu Fati will probably not reach after Xavi affirmed that he is not in favor of taking risks.
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