There are two Barcelonas, the one who walks upright through Europe and the one who walks in fits and starts and barely advances in the League. Unlike what happened in previous seasons, it is in the domestic competition where the Blaugrana are losing their mask and seeing the seams. First it was away from home but now it is also stuck in Montjuïc, where with 87 minutes left it was unable to overcome the initial goal of Leganés, another team from the lower zone, like Las Palmas, which took the three points from Barcelona.
Hansi Flick’s men could neither win by the minimum like Atlético nor add a point like Madrid, with whom they are fighting in the League, and Barcelona’s leadership is at the mercy of their pursuers recovering the pending match they have. From concern has turned to despair for having lost the pulse of the game. It was an exercise in complete impotence because the changes also left Barça without resources.
There are games that are born twisted and the match was turned around for the leader of the League. Leganés is the team that finishes the least but in the third minute they had already had a very clear chance against only the goalkeeper. Munir, with everything in his favor, could not with the departure of Iñaki Peña, who sent it to corners. But, precisely in that corner kick, the Pepinero captain, Sergio González, rose alone in the area to head into the net without opposition. Neither Eric, blocked, nor Koundé bothered him in the least in the jump.
The common denominator of the two actions was the right foot of Óscar Rodríguez, who has a glove in his deliveries. The success of the visiting sniper contrasts with the moment of lack of delicacy and precision that Dani Olmo experiences in the Barça midfielder, just on a night in which the Blaugrana needed play between the lines to pierce the bolt posed by Leganés, who found themselves winning and nothing occurred to him but to start losing time now to try to maintain his advantage.
The attitude of extending each serve by the goalkeeper Dmitrovic or the continuous collapses of the blue and white defenders unnerved the stands because they also had the safe passage of the referee Quintero González, a debutant, just 31 years old. “A Segunda”, sang the Montjuïc audience, enlivened by a brass band hired to replace the retired entertainment stands.
But games have to be won on the field and there Barcelona seemed to want to make life difficult for themselves, as was already happening in previous League games. If the Champions League brings out the best in the Blaugrana, the national championship is going to Flick’s team, who was serving his first game of suspension.
The scenario was the worst that could happen to a Barça team in which ten of Wednesday’s starters in Dortmund were playing. The only new thing was Eric Garcia, who took Cubarsí’s place, one of those who has been in all 23 games this season and the only one who was resting. But in front there was not a rival who wanted to play, but rather an opponent who wanted to ensure that not the least amount of things happened.
The locals got stuck in the funnel that Leganés proposed. Everything could have changed radically if Lewandowski had sharpened his aim. Because the Polish top scorer had two unbeatable chances to equalize the score and yet on both occasions he saw the goalkeeper too big and the goal too small. The striker couldn’t beat Dmitrovic in a point-blank shot in the six-yard box or in a face-to-face game with much more time to think. Pedri sent him a ball over the top that he took down with a dancer’s movement to stay in front of the goalkeeper but he rushed and couldn’t deceive him in his shot. The former Sevilla and Eibar goalkeeper also excelled in a spectacular volley from Raphinha that was rejected between his right glove and the crossbar.
The game was a monologue of possession and a will and can’t from the Barcelona fans, since not even the genius of a limping Lamine Yamal appeared since after a tackle by Neyou in which his right ankle was bent, for which he already He missed a few games. The winger was never comfortable on the pitch and still refused to abandon the cause until he was substituted, just after the fans asked for a penalty on Raphinha and another on Koundé.
So Barça, in need of goals, ended up without Lewandowski’s sense of smell, Olmo’s imagination and Lamine Yamal’s imbalance, something incomprehensible from a logical point of view and only understandable due to the congestion of minutes in the legs.
The attempt at a comeback was left in the boots of Ferran Torres, Fermín or Pau Víctor, who are not the theoretical stars. But the best chance was not even for any of them but for Koundé who, after a backheel from the Dortmund hero, crossed too far in an unbeatable position.
Not even with a direct foul from Raphinha could Barça react, which has not come back in a game since August, which has lost two games in a row at home and which has barely added 5 points of the last 18 in the League after linking several exercises of helplessness.
#Frustration #takes #Barça #Leganés
