There is nothing more Barcelona than a rondo. The players do them in all training sessions. But the Barcelona players had the luxury of expressing their combinative style in three great goals in the Champions League. In Vienna they once again dismantled the Austrian St. Pölten with quick, short and precise passes. The local defenses did not understand how the ball could circulate at that speed in an area where a priori there seemed to be no space.
The Portuguese Kika, signed this summer and increasingly integrated into Barça’s game, was the ideal complement as a false nine for the associations and movements of Alexia Putellas, Vicky López and Patri Guijarro. The four of them had fun on the grass with tug-of-war games.
Alexia’s 200th goal was beautiful: a one-two with Kika, who returned the ball after controlling with his chest
Despite the desire to mix and imagine to warm up the cold Viennese night, the first goal came after high pressure from Barça. Kika bit Dubcova until she stole the ball from the Czech defense on the edge of the area and beat goalkeeper Schlüter with her right foot.
That goal (20) paved the way and gave confidence so that the forbidden steps could be taken, so that the most spectacular actions could be seen, the triangulations in a span, the walls in a tile.
The recital began with Alexia with a great opening to the left for Brugts to enter from the band. The Dutchwoman reached the baseline and her center back went to the feet of Kika Nazareth. In the area, the former Benfica player controlled, turned around and placed the ball where she wanted (29).
The Viola Park crowd applauded the 0-3 even more, almost immediately, in a play in which Vicky snatched the ball from a rival and finished the play herself. The young woman leaned on Alexia and this, all at the first touch, with Kika, who saw the arrival of Patri Guijarro from the second line. The Spaniard, in a state of grace after her great classic, invented a back-heel pass that Vicky López picked up to send to the squad.
Like fake 9
The Portuguese was involved in all four goals: she scored the first two, was in the 0-3 and assisted in the 0-4
Every once in a while it was better than the last. And the fourth was the maximum, the summum. Aitana Bonmatí, who had entered at half-time despite the 0-3 lead – a sign that Barça was not going to relax – connected with Alexia. From Ballon d’Or to Ballon d’Or. And Mollet’s, between the lines, first made the wall with Kika, who returned the ball after controlling it with her chest. In the box, Alexia didn’t get nervous at all and still had the courage to cut back and sit D’Angelo before crossing in front of Schlüter. A work of art for his 200th goal with the Barça shirt, ten of them this season that has started with a bang.
Pere Romeu’s team had gone more than 480 minutes without conceding a goal when Mädl made the score 1-4 (59). A key fact, especially because the coach does not stop making rotations in the rearguard of his team. Without going any further, in Vienna, Barça formed with three different defenses from the ones they played last Saturday at the Alfredo di Stéfano. Only the Dutch Brugts repeated on the left side. Protected by Jana, Torrejón and Engen, Cata Coll barely had to intervene in a shot from a long-range free kick by Mikolajova. But in the second half, in another foul, this time from the side, the Slovak scored a low cross that traveled throughout the small area until Mädl pushed into the net to make up for a game that was a rondo for Barça.
#beautiful #rondo #Vienna
