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Barça passed the San Mamés test by winning 0-1 and turns the Clásico against Real Madrid next Sunday at the Camp Nou into a final for Real Madrid, who will arrive at the Blaugrana stadium at nine points. Xavi had marked the match in Bilbao as a final and Barça competed with more faith than football. Clinging to a huge Ter Stegen (19 clean sheets), to a surgical Raphinha and with controversy in the goal disallowed against Athletic by the hand of Muniainthe Catalan team continues to defend its leadership tooth and nail.
Between two coaches who know each other as well as Valverde and Xavi, the match was planned as the tenth game of a chess world championship. The tactical warfare was intense in the previous one. To any queen’s gambit of one, the rival responded with a castling. Xavi, who inaugurated the system of the fourth midfielder (gavi) against Athletic Club at the Camp Nou, playing as a false winger to unleash the Basque team in his stadium, gave a twist and this time appeared with three born attackers and leaving Sergi Roberto as a right back. Koundé, who is fed up with playing on the wing, was central. A decision that can be interpreted as compensation for his forced penance in the band or as a challenge. Let’s not forget that if Araújo couldn’t play in San Mamés it was because he saw a red card trying to solve a mess by the Frenchman.
Faced with this disposition of Barcelona, Valverde responded with a tactical movement that consisted of changing bands to Nico Williams. The exciting duel between Balde and Nico, two of the fastest players in the tournament, was left for another time because the local coach decided to face Sergi Roberto.
Initially, the party What Valverde wanted was played more than what Xavi planned. But this Barça is, even without Araujo, an impressive team in defense, a virtue that compensates for its deficiencies in what had been the company’s motto: the game with the ball.
With the ball, Barça was stunned, but without it, they were wolves running backwards. An example of the spirit of this Stakhanovist Barcelona is the play in which Gavi dove headlong to the ground to get the ball out of an opponent’s boot. Gavi, if necessary, he will go looking for a head ball inside a hornet’s nest. In a fan. In the Fukushima reactor.
Athletic, despite dominating, only created danger based on errors by Xavi’s men or set pieces. A loss by Balde when the ball came out was solved by Ter Stegen, who deflected it into a corner. At the kickoff, Raúl García headed the crossbar.
They were the clearest chances for the locals, but Barça, without having a clear party thread, showed signs of showing its fang.
Ferran had warned at the beginning, Lewandowski wasted a fabulous pass from De Jong due to poor control against Agirrezabala.
That the Catalan team was in more danger than the local team was made clear in the last minute of the first part when Busquets enabled Raphinha who, at the limit of offside, shot the goalkeeper with a cross shot. After the VAR review, the goal was awarded. Barça had extracted oil from the first part.
In the second, the script had two parts. From the outset, Barcelona seemed to control the situation and kept the ball better than in the first act. But as the game drew to a close, Xavi’s team found themselves in a quagmire again. In that situation, Ter Stegen grew again next to a great Christensen.
The scare was going to come sooner or later and with a heartbroken Sergi Roberto and a Kessié who came out to complicate things, the battle turned into another exercise in resistance. Williams equalized at 88, but after a VAR review it was found that Muniain had won the ball with his hand. A hand worth nine points.
Changes
Oier Zarraga (63′, Mikel Vesga), Iker Muniain (63′, Raúl García), Frank Kessie (67′, Ferran Torres), Yuri Berchiche (69′, Mikel Balenziaga), Ansu Fati (82′, Sergi Roberto), Mark Alonso (82′, Raphinha), Gorka Guruzeta (83′, Alex Berenguer), Ander Capa (83′, Oscar De Marcos), Angel Alarcon (93′, Gavi)
cards
Referee: Jesus Gil Manzano
VAR Referee: José Luis González González, Pablo González Fuertes
Williams (29′,Yellow) Sergi Roberto (75′,Yellow) Oier Zarraga (85′,Yellow)
| Classification | PT | PJ | PG | PE | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | 35 | 25 | 9 | 8 | 8 |
| 8 | 34 | 25 | 9 | 7 | 9 |
| 9 | 33 | 25 | 9 | 6 | 10 |
| 10 | 32 | 25 | 9 | 5 | 11 |
| 11 | 31 | 25 | 8 | 7 | 10 |
| Classification | PT | PJ | PG | PE | PP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 65 | 25 | 21 | 2 | 2 |
| 2 | 56 | 25 | 17 | 5 | 3 |
| 3 | 45 | 24 | 13 | 6 | 5 |
| 4 | 45 | 25 | 13 | 6 | 6 |
| 5 | 42 | 25 | 12 | 6 | 7 |
