Xavi Hernández, during the Cup match against Intercity at Rico Pérez in Alicante. /
Analysis
The Barça coach acknowledged being “uneasy” after the matches against Espanyol and Intercity and regretted the “lack of forcefulness”
Xavi Hernández is concerned about the situation his team is going through since the competition returned after the World Cup in Qatar. The Barça coach has seen in just four days how his team were not able to get past the draw at home against Espanyol and, most worryingly, how Intercity got up to their beards in the Copa del Rey in a game in which that the azulgranas lost control of the round of 32 clash, a tie in which Barcelona debuted on Wednesday in the KO tournament and they had to resolve in extra time.
«This lack of forcefulness leaves me uneasy, especially in attack. It can happen in defense, but not in attack, and it has been in both areas. We have to close the games much earlier. We have made life difficult for ourselves”, Xavi acknowledged after Barcelona’s match against Intercity at the Rico Pérez in Alicante. The culé coach thus summarized a match in which his team made up to 29 shots, ten of them between sticks, and in which he ended up suffering tremendously against an opponent who only disturbed Iñaki Peña on six occasions, three of which they ended in goal.
Xavi’s frustration comes after a cup game in which a priori it was not time to suffer. The Catalan coach put an eleven in contention with starting theorists and theirs were clearly superior, but they did not finish the job and little by little Intercity grew at the mercy of a Barça that broke down in the second half. That lack of solidity in defense is the other circumstance that worries Xavi in the last two games.
Barça forged its leadership in the League before going to Qatar in large part thanks to its defensive strength. Ter Stegen had only conceded five goals in the first 14 league games and the Catalans have conceded four, practically the same number, in the last two games. Against Intercity, Barça stepped into the abyss in the Cup and it did so because of an evil of yesteryear that Xavi believed he had tackled. Aarón put the Catalans in check on several occasions with plays in transition and each ball behind the central defenders was a torment for the Blaugrana defense. Soldevila’s hat-trick put a defense in which Bellerín continues without showing signs of being able to get a place in the starting team, while Koundé, Araujo, Eric García and Marcos Alonso showed a lack of forcefulness and Jordi Alba shone more in attack than in defensive work.
And without Lewandowski
To a skinny dog they are all fleas and that is what happens to Barcelona. The Administrative Court of Sport (TAD) ratified on Wednesday the three-game ban on Robert Lewandowski and his teammates will have to improve in the opposite area without his greatest exponent. The Polish striker will not be in the difficult game on Sunday at the Metropolitano against Atlético de Madrid and he will not be able to play the matches against Getafe and Girona in the next two days. Without him, the culés lose a player who has participated in 17 of the 34 goals that the culé team has scored and is the reference on which all of Barça’s offensive gear revolves.
The president of Barcelona, Joan Laporta, referred this Thursday to the punishment imposed on Lewandowski, who described the sanction on the great star of his team as “very exaggerated”, but “logical as is the regulation”. «We accept the resolution of the TAD. We always have. We have always accepted sports jurisdiction, but the TAD did not enter into the background and we went to ordinary justice to request a very precautionary one. It was granted to us (for Lewandowski to play against Espanyol) until the TAD resolution was final. We thought that the TAD would rule earlier and then, that it would do so later, but it seems that since there was a party these days, they met earlier and they will not be able to play against Atlético, “launched the top Barça leader. “If the regulations had been less rigid, the sanction could have only been for one game, but as it is right now, it is within logic,” lamented Laporta on Cadena Ser.
Regarding the agonizing duel of the Cup against Intercity, Laporta stressed that the Barça players “had attitude and the fight was commendable.” «I am not angry about the game. I’m happy because we passed. This Cup model is fun. It was suffered at times, but it was clear to me that we would end up winning,” he assured.
Laporta was also asked about the possibility of signing the Portuguese midfielder Bernardo Silva, and assured that “Barcelona will not pay 80 million euros for him”, while faced with the dream of reinforcing the team with Erling Haaland, he limited himself to commenting: “We’ll see how he does it at City.” “At the moment we have Lewandowski, who is doing very well,” he settled.
“I think the Super League will be a reality in 2025”, predicts Laporta
“If the resolution of the Court of Luxembourg is favourable, I believe that the Super League will be a reality in 2025,” Joan Laporta predicted this Thursday. The president of Barcelona predicts that the future great European tournament promoted by Florentino Pérez “will initially compete with the Premier, since the English teams will not enter at the beginning”, but he is convinced that “everything will end later in a merger between the Super League and Primera».
“The judgment of the Court of Luxembourg – which will be made public this year – will be as important for the clubs as the Bosman law for the players. I believe in an open Super League. The idea that it is open is not that it is mine, it is that Barça would not enter the Super League if it was not open. Real Madrid and Juventus accepted it and also the rest of the clubs, because the English are still there and we want them to be. What we are requesting and what we want is for the clubs to govern, and I hope that UEFA forms part of the governance and has a chair in the Super League meetings,” Laporta commented. “The meritocracy to be in the Super League will come from the UEFA competitions and from the national leagues, in which I believe,” he added.
Regarding his relationship with the biggest detractor of the Super League, Javier Tebas, the Barça president assured that “the staff has never been bad, although it has been tense.” «Thebes is a complicated person. They should be more concerned with recovering football subscribers on television, increasing the income of Spanish football”, claimed Laporta, who after admitting that “Barça was in ruins and therefore Messi could not be retained”, showed himself optimistic about the economic future of the culé entity. «The partners can rest easy. The treasury situation is controlled. We are in a profit situation when before we were in losses’, although we are alert. We have the feeling that we are saving the club,” he said.
