2023-07-29 21:35:44
Barcelona found logic in its most illogical footballer. Yes, Dembele. He blessed his sticks with holy water (up to five times white hopes died on wood). And he understood that a 20-year-old from Huelva who dreamed big at Linares, Fermín López, is as good as he is brave. He arrived at La Masia at the age of 13, and in Dallas he scored and assisted in a classic that will remain embedded in his memory forever.
It shouldn’t be wrong. Footballers are not crazy. But summer suffocates and oppresses, and any excuse is used to justify everyone losing their sanity. The business, the media pressure, the tension of the social networks and the ego of the protagonists themselves lead to a preseason classic in a place like Dallas being played with impetus and rage.
The fights followed, those who fell due to discomfort (Christensen and Gündogan for Barça; Mendy for Madrid) and the warnings while the players gave their lives to win the duels and put their flag in any corner of the field.
Both Xavi Hernández and Carlo Ancelotti have already hinted at what the matter would be about with lineups full of headlines. The Barcelona coach, after the 4-3-3 set up in the defeat against Arsenal (5-3), already drew on the field that formation of four midfielders with whom the official season should start, including Oriol Romeu and Ilkay Gündogan (Gavi still suffers from his back discomfort in the infirmary). Even Ronald Araujo was placed on the right side as is always the case when facing Real Madrid. While the whites, beyond the absences in the eleven of Kroos and Modric, reinforced the muscle and that idea that he intends to stabilize this course, with Bellingham occupying the upper vertex of the diamond in a 4-4-2 where Vinicius and Rodrygo, Far from the shores, they try to make up for Karim Benzema’s flight to Arabia.
Barcelona quickly took the pulse of the game. Oriol Romeu, in his first big game as a Barça player in a course in which he will be required to be as reliable as Busquets, almost split the crossbar in two with one of those violent volleys that only come out well in dreams. Although Barça found logic in its most illogical piece. Yes, in Dembélé, the player who crowned in a blackboard action in which Gündogan contributed, in the kick from a lateral free kick, and Pedri, who dismembered the white defense from the front. While Ancelotti’s footballers looked ahead and ran in search of the canary, he played the trick with the white chips to the satisfaction of Dembélé, only on the same flank where the move had started, and who was strangely precise in his shot crossed to goal
The Barca goal encouraged Real Madrid, who took possession of the ball thanks to their high pressure and who soon loaded the game on Rodrygo and Vinicius. His first option to tie, however, was wasted by the whites after Araujo put his hand out for a walk in the area. Vinicius took responsibility for the penalty, but found no better destination than the crossbar.
And when the wood stopped being a border -Vinicius hit the ball against the crossbar again-, it was Ter Stegen’s body who got in the way. The German goalkeeper, already promoted to second captain, snatched another two goals from the white attacking duo.
The benches began to worry about the dynamics that the game had acquired. Because Camavinga was the search for Araujo’s ankle, who barely managed to overcome. Or because De Jong even had the guts to roll in the mud hitting Mendy, perhaps frustrated that Dembélé, after a Lewandowski robbery, could not overcome Courtois in a duel in the sun in which the goalkeeper was more awake.
Barcelona penalized that Gündogan, very alive in the first act, could no longer play after the break due to the warning that his muscles gave him. Sergi Roberto, of course, is not the same. The azulgranas were retreating, although Madrid saw all hope die again on the crossbar. Tchouaméni did not know how to get around the stick either, allied with a Ter Stegen who saw how the ball bounced off his back before moving away from the goal line.
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Ancelotti looked for consistency in Kroos and Modric, and also finished off Joselu, the only pure center forward in the squad. Although, while Xavi decided to resist by changing more than half of the team, Vinicius unhinged the disoriented Dest, but without being able to focus on the goal. Again the one-eyed booty, again the stick.
And in those, Fermín López appeared, a devil between the lines who took a hammer blow from the edge in the 2-0 and who knew how to sting it as if he were caressing a canvas with the brush so that Ferran Torres could put the signature to a classic in which the Barcelona knew how to survive, but also to live.
#minute #preseason #Clásico #live