Barça’s drought in the League is coming to an end after four long years of waiting. Since 2019, before the covid-19 pandemic that shook world football, the azulgrana team, used to dominating the regularity championship in modern times, had not sung the alirón. They were still the times of the quiet Ernesto Valverde on the bench at the Camp Nou, with Messi and Luis Suárez leading a devastating attack although also with certain airs of the decadence that was to come. Quique Setién, Ronald Koeman and the interim Sergi Barjuán were engulfed by an era of lean times at Can Barça and although the arrival of Xavi Hernández has not managed to stop the fall in Europe, the metronome of Guardiola’s glorious Barça on the pitch has managed to return to theirs the throne of the League from the bench.
Data since the three-point system for victory was introduced
League champion day
Data since the three-point system for victory was introduced
League champion day
Data since the three-point system for victory was introduced
League champion day
Data since the three-point system for victory was introduced
League champion day
Barça has imposed a rhythm that is impossible for Real Madrid to follow, which, focused on the Champions League and the Cup final, has allowed itself to be carried away in the final stretch until second place is seriously at risk, in dispute with Atlético, extraordinary in their numbers in the second round but weighed down by the setbacks prior to the break for the World Cup in Qatar. For weeks the alirón was already a purely numerical question but Xavi’s Barça has finally managed to match the precociousness of Ancelotti’s Real Madrid last year and close the title with four days to go in the tournament, just as it did with Louis Van Gaal in 1998 and with Ernesto Valverde in 2018.
Record defensive data
This Barça is an atypical group according to the style implanted at the time by Johan Cruyff at the Camp Nou, which Guardiola brought to its maximum expression between 2008 and 2012. It is not that their goalscoring records are bad, far from it, since they add 64 goals in favour, almost two per game, four more than Atlético and yes, six less than Real Madrid, the best in this regard, but it shines above all defensively, with only 13 goals conceded, a fact that With four games to go, it places the Barça team very close to a record not only in Spanish football, but also among the major leagues in Europe.
Xavi, a mutant disciple of Guardiola
The challenge that Xavi Hernández took on on November 5, 2021 was huge. All his experience on the bench went through two and a half seasons as coach of Al-Sadd in Qatar, far from the demands of football on the Old Continent, and his greatest endorsement was his status as a legendary player at the club. It has been difficult for him to straighten the course of a ship that was adrift at that time, after a departure from Koeman that was the chronicle of a death foretold, but he has regained competitiveness with a mix between the classic style of possession and good treatment of the ball his teacher Guardiola and a commendable defensive strength that differs from the established script.
Xavi’s palmares
as a coach
Xavi’s palmares
as a coach
Xavi’s palmares
as a coach
Xavi’s record as a coach
Despite some brilliant punctual moments, such as the 0-4 league draw against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu in March 2022, irregularity was the predominant note of his first season as Barça coach, which ended without titles. This campaign, the first complete one in charge of the Barca first team, has achieved a meritorious double of national trophies with the League and the Super Cup. The win in the classic second leg of the cup semifinals (0-4) and especially a new shipwreck in Europe, as they fell in the Champions League group stage against Bayern and Inter and then in the round of 32 of the Europa League against Manchester United , darken the course of Barça.
Lewandowski, from more to less
The arrival of Robert Lewandowski at Barça last summer, prompted by the economic ‘levers’ of Joan Laporta, gave the Barça team the leap in offensive quality that it demanded to aspire to titles again. The staging of the Polish striker was impressive, with 13 goals in the first 12 league games, but the break for the World Cup in Qatar put a stop to a progress typical of his best seasons at Bayern Munich. Since then, he has added eight more goals that help him lead the Pichichi Trophy rankings with 21 goals, four more than Real Madrid player Karim Benzema, winner of the award last season and only rival in the fight for the top scorer title, one of those small objectives that will animate the last days of the league.
Raphinha, the best assistant
If Lewandowski has the upper hand in the goalscoring plot of Barça, the Barça assists chapter is very choral. The Brazilian Raphinha, the Pole’s priority partner in the culé attack due to Dembélé’s injury, has seven goal assists in the League, far from the twelve of Griezmann, the best player in the championship in this regard. They are followed with six each by Balde, who has emerged as a great offensive resource for Xavi since he was a left winger, and Lewandowski himself. Behind, with five, Dembélé, an accomplished distributor of goal passes among his teammates despite his recurring absences due to physical problems.
Ter Stegen, a lock for history
Marc-André Ter Stegen will go down in history as the proper name of this 27th League trophy in Barça’s history. The German goalkeeper is walking steadily towards a record in the almost hundred-year history of the tournament after conceding 13 goals in 34 games and accumulating 25 clean sheets so far. The Zamora Trophy is assured, but the record shared by the sportsman Paco Liaño and the athletic Jan Oblak, who conceded 18 goals in 38 games in the 1993-94 and 2015-16 campaigns, is also in serious jeopardy.
The magnitude of the figures that Barça manages this campaign extends beyond the Spanish borders, as it has at hand the best record of goals conceded in the modern history of the five major European leagues. José Mourinho’s Chelsea, who won the English Premier League in the Portuguese’s first campaign at Stamford Bridge, 2004-05, conceded 15 goals in 38 games that season, a record that Barça now has within reach.
2023-05-15 12:03:19
#keys #champion #atypical #Barça
