Barça Thrash Athletic: Match Report & Highlights

BarcelonaBarça is a treat for the eyes. One of those teams that manage, for a few minutes, to make their fans forget about the grayness of everyday life and this increasingly crazy world. During 18 minutes of glory, Flick’s team thrashed Athletic by scoring four goals that could have been more, and ended a semi-final without history, a game played in one direction, an avalanche of play that drowned Unai Simón (5-0). Barça did not let the Basques write their part of the script, condemned to be another victim of a team that passes over you with the force of a pickaxe, but while heavenly violins are playing.

Barça returned to the stage where Hansi Flick was born a year ago. Where he began to bury the doubts deep in the Saudi arena to raise the foundations of a team he likes. A year later, Barça are once again in the Supercopa final, waiting to see which Madrid opponent they will face, after making it easy in the semi-finals. At the break, all the fish were already sold as Unai Simón kept getting goals. Joan Garcia, who is in the middle of a debate about who is the best state goalkeeper at the moment, watched it from a distance, relaxed. He was just another spectator in this stadium full of people from all over the Middle East who had made the pilgrimage to see the geniuses of Barça live. A strange tournament and setting, hard to recognize. Unlike the Blaugrana game.

The Basques, toothless lions, did not resist. Barça is light years away from Ernesto Valverde’s team, who does not have good memories of playing in Saudi Arabia, since he was fired from Barça here years ago. Years that seem like centuries, seeing how the club was then and how Flick’s team is getting excited now that it does have good Super Cup records, after the thrashing of Real Madrid a year ago. To celebrate the return to Saudi lands, a new thrashing.

And the fact that the match arrived with Lamine Yamal, who had not finished clean, on the bench. No problem, in current Barça the goals are falling out of their pockets. Flick, bearing the brunt of that dark legend that second seasons aren’t usually good, went about ignoring it. In fact, a few months ago it seemed that this could be Lamine Yamal’s season, but the collective spirit prevailed over the individualities. If this Barça has a name of its own, it is that of Flick, who works with a team full of alternatives, where everyone caresses the ball and the praises are distributed. A Barça that can win without Lamine. That overlaps with casualties. It’s Barça, in general. It’s not a one-man team, although if Pedri plays life seems more beautiful. Never fails, the canary.

Flick opted for Roony Bardghji, the Swede born for things in life in Kuwait, not far away, to activate the team on the left. He snarled at her. Blessed are the problems of Flick, who in attack can choose who to play. Lewandowski and Dani Olmo were waiting on the bench, while on the grass the starting players were scoring goals without losing their hair. The first, the work of Ferran, who put the icing on a collective play. Then came the goal of Fermín, a man who does not stand still for a second, and Roony’s, after a serious mistake by Unai. The fourth, on the other hand, was the merit of Raphinha, who invented a beautiful move all by himself. At the break, Athletic was a rag doll lying on the ground, as if Barça had tired of playing with them. Flick had the whole second half to get out the calculator and give his players a break thinking about Sunday’s final. With 18 minutes, Barça had already completed the job.

A second part of the procedure

Just in case, the team took to the pitch after the break plugged in. The fifth, the work of Raphinha, took very little time to arrive. A play where four different players could have scored, who were kicking against the opposing defense like children do at fairground attractions. Like it’s a game. An imaginative team, full of talent, with the charm and talent to write a sensual story with the ball, as if it were one of the Thousand and One Nights or Ali Baba. An Arab fantasy to be one step away from winning a new title. Blessed routine, this one of aspiring to titles every three by four, a fact that for others is utopian.

Flick made changes from the 65th minute, to see men like Gerard Martin, Rashford or Bernal in action. The game had already ended a while ago, under the frustrated gaze of Nico Williams on the bench. Not one minute did a boy play who understood that he has no place at Barça. If Flick’s team wins without missing Lamine, who came on to play the last 15 minutes, they will miss him less. Barça had no mercy on their rival. It’s not cruelty, it’s Flick’s way of being: he always wants to improve, he always wants to see goals. Ambition and exuberance, the recipe for winning titles.