2023-11-04 23:36:18
“I owed it to the team. It was my duty. It’s my first goal this season.” This is how forceful Ronald Araujo, the centre-back who scored Barça’s winning goal, has been. It was he who gave a “golden” victory, according to Xavi, also rewarding Ter Stegen’s decisive saves. Up to five and all decisive for the German goal.
Two different attacks and a goal from a central defender
Xavi agitated Barça again and again. He wanted to revive a team that was inert. Without football, without soul, without reaction, without energy… The coach modified the entire offensive structure. But without result. Xavi started with Cancelo in that role of right winger/right interior that is not being productive at all. He had Lewandowski, who left with an hour of play in his legs, although not a single shot. And he assigned João Félix to the right flank, blurred like the Portuguese has been in recent games.
That trident was safe. No goal, of course. Nor did he intimidate Real. Xavi was so worried that he changed, little by little, the three of them. First, to Polish; then, to the ‘Joãos’. That is, they ended up with a forward made up of Lamine Yamal, who played in San Sebastián as a right winger. He needed 12 minutes, yes 12 minutes! to touch the ball because no one found it. Nobody saw it. Lamine, Ferran Torres, from ‘nine’, and Raphinha, who started on the right in the classic, listed as a left winger in Donosti.
Not even with six forwards did Barça generate danger. Until Araujo arrived in the final minutes, creating up to three chances. And one of them ended in the goal that is worth three points. The Uruguayan was the most decisive player in attack.
Xavi repeated the tactical plan of the classic
Xavi repeated the drawing. The coach repeated the same tactical plan that he devised for the classic, placing three centre-backs, with the return of Koundé to the axis of the defense and, once again, Araujo was moved to the right flank as a full-back. Christensen fell from the eleven and, however, Iñigo Martínez remained, chaining his third consecutive start. Barça’s three center backs did not, however, provide defensive solvency.
It turned out to be a transparent team, with so much weakness that Real jumped on it. There was no firmness. Nor fierceness. And that, perhaps, the three best specialists that Xavi had in this aspect played: Araujo, Koundé and Iñigo Martínez. The Uruguayan was seen, curiously, to suffer more with Barrenetxea than with Vinicius last week. The Frenchman was seen as too generous, making gifts inappropriate to his quality and, above all, his status. And the Basque, whistled in his own house because he once went to Athletic, did not detect the authority that characterized him.
A little piece of paper for Iñigo Martínez
Iñigo not only had to act as a left-footed center back but also as a messenger. Xavi saw that Barça, no matter how much they intensified the pressure at the beginning of the second half, was not working the way he wanted. He introduced two changes. He didn’t touch anything at the back, with the three center backs. But it did change in the midfield (Pedri, who reappeared after two months and 11 days, came in for Fermín) and in the center of the attack: Ferran Torres replaced a gray and invisible Lewandowski.
“There were so many things written on the piece of paper that I didn’t even know how to tell the rest”
Barça defense
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It was then that Iñigo Martínez picked up a piece of paper that the coaches gave him from the bench. He unfolded the sheet and read it. Although on more than one occasion. He had to distribute orders to his colleagues. Three minutes later he received a yellow card. Although he was taking out that little piece of paper that he had hidden in one of his socks.
“There were so many things written on the piece of paper that I didn’t even know how to tell the rest,” the Basque defender later admitted.
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