Barça: La Liga Champions 2023

And the declaration of intentions that Guillermo Almada, Oviedo coach, advanced in the previous one, was not a bluff. The Uruguayan said “we will try to take the ball away from them” and from the first minute that objective could be seen in the Oviedo players. The Asturians pressed high and made a confused Barcelona uncomfortable with the changes of Hansi Flick, who acted as a shell player with Cancelo at left-back, Gerard Martín at center back and Eric García at right-back, three defenders out of their natural place. In addition, the German gave the alternative to Casadó and Olmo along with Frenkie de Jong in a new midfield so that Pedri’s loss would not be noticed.

That idea didn’t catch on. This was because Barça had a hard time finding De Jong at the base, because the Barça centre-backs did not know how to break that first line of pressure from Carbayona and, above all, because of the lack of width that Cancelo offered on the left side and Eric on the right. From there, Barça’s frustration arrived. The culés, without Pedri, did not manage at any time during the first half to circulate the ball at enough speed to disrupt Oviedo and the victims were Raphinha and Lamine Yamal, two key players who did not have the possibility of facing their pair on equal numbers.

Barça’s poor presentation also coincided with the good face of an Oviedo team that forgot the first months of the competition, the classification and even the 25 years they had not set foot at the Camp Nou. Almada knew how to counteract Barcelona’s diminished weapons, and built a reactive team after the recovery and that maintained enough of a threat until half-time that Joan Garcia had to intervene twice with shots from outside the area, the same as Escandell, more unnoticed than expected.

After the restart, Barça revved up. The culés bit at the top with much more intensity and found the fruit as soon as they left the locker room after great pressure from Lamine Yamal. The ’10’ recovered the ball in the opposite area and Dani Olmo did the rest to punish Oviedo’s mistake with an unappealable right hand for Escandell. It was a disaster for those from Almada, who once again saw for another week how everything built collapsed in a matter of seconds due to concessions that cannot be had at the highest level.

It happened in the first goal and it also happened in the second. Raphinha pressed with the hunger that characterizes him and David Costas left a delivery to Escandell short so that the demolition could continue. The Brazilian defined from above and left the match to be decided, which entered a new dimension in which Oviedo self-destructed and Barça wanted more.

Flick took advantage of the inertia to introduce Fermín and Balde, two players who could increase depth and go up another gear in the final stretch. The Huelva native entered from the left and let Olmo continue in the midfield, where he feels most comfortable and from where he was going to enable Lamine Yamal to score one of the goals of the year. The ball came raining into the area, on the wrong foot, and Lamine took advantage of the opportunity to take a pair of scissors out of his hat and put the ball on the far post. An unforgettable goal that put the finishing touch to a match that ended in hail and that was not round, but in which the details revealed the distance that exists between the leader and the bottom of the classification.