BarcelonaThe Champions League is something else. Half-tones are not enough here, you have to go all out. Barça tried, even with a hasty start to the tie, but Europe is Europe. Roma (0-1) managed to contain a dominating Blaugrana team, but unlucky in front of goal. Thanks to a solitary goal by Salma Paralluelo in the first half, the Culers will arrive at the Camp Nou with a certain advantage to try to seal their passage to the semi-finals of the top continental competition.
Barça came out of the dressing room tunnel as if the game had lasted 20 minutes. The ball burned at their feet. The plays, rushed, went at maximum speed, but without much definition. The Culers, who decided to channel the game on the left side with Fridolina Rolfo and Salma Paralluelo at the helm, started to run with a certain lack of control. If we looked at the scoreboard, it had barely been a quarter of an hour into the game, but if we looked at what was happening on the grass, the momentum of the goal transmitted a certain anxiety. As if time was running out, as if it was necessary to open the can immediately, without having the break and cool head that a 120-minute tie calls for.
Due to this precipitation, the Blaugrana started to lose balls. Unforced errors, what would we call them in a tennis match. The dominance was strong, there is no need to doubt that, but the superiority was not accompanied by an order that helped to build the actions coherently in the first leg of the tie. Despite the discord on the pitch, the shots on goal came from the boots of the Blaugrana footballers. First Paralluelo and then Aitana and Graham Hansen tried to beat Ceasar, but none could get the ball into the goal.
Barça began to calm down at half-time. And the fact is that, with calmness, everything looks better: the balls circulate at pleasure, the plays culminate and the goals start to come in. And not just the goals, but also the goals, like Salma Paralluelo’s. The Zaragoza player, key in the game at the Olympic Games in Rome, placed the ball with a trace, adjusted to the left post from the half-moon and with a dry and powerful touch. What a good decision Paralluelo made when he chose Barça and football over athletics. What a piece of player, lethal on the wing and in front of goal, who scored her first goal in the Champions League in the first leg of the quarter-finals.
Face and cross culer
The second half was electric, back and forth, to the delight of the Cullers fans. The Blaugrana condensed most of the chances of danger, but Roma, in specific plays – especially on the counter-attack – compromised the defense. As Salma wore a smile from ear to ear, Oshoala’s face of despair was evident. The Nigerian striker did not have her day. There are days when there is no way, no matter how much you put all the will in the world into it. When Oshoala crosses, he despairs and there is little to scratch. Oshoala, a mental footballer of sorts, never felt comfortable on the pitch. Individual mistakes and poor definition doomed her in a match where she tried everything but nothing came of it. Headed, alone in front of the goal, with a touch of spur, rebound… Everything is everything. But no ball ended up in the goal. When she was substituted in the 66th minute, her face said it all.
Barça faded away and Roma took advantage of these minutes of darkness to try to equalize the score. Two dangerous actions made the legs of the culers tremble, who were about to return to Barcelona empty-handed. But Paralluelo’s goal makes good a game in which he had to suffer more than he had to.
