Xavi has been left without forwards to face Madrid tonight in the classic cupbearer, so he has had to call Angel Alarcona classic in recent calls, including in the list Estanis Pedrola, another youth from the branch. There was a time, and not so long ago (January), when he had up to six attackers on his payroll, but now he only has three: Raphinha, Ferran Torres y Ansu Fati, already received a medical discharge after recovering from a blow he suffered on Friday.
Headlines (Lewandowski and Dembele) are injured, missing the Bernabéu event that could set a trend in the immediate future of the team. And from the club. And who knows if even Xavi. For the good and, above all, for the bad. The significance of the absence of the Pole, together with Pedri’s irremediable loss in football because he is the beacon of the team, is measured in figures.
Lewandowski has scored 25 goals this season, while Raphinha (7), Ansu (6) and Ferran (5) between the three have barely managed 18, proof of the extreme dependence that Xavi’s team has. Not only that. Dembélé, with eight goals, and Pedri, with seven, inject 15, which reveals the tremendous hole that Xavi must solve at the Bernabéu.
Therefore, the offensive responsibility remains in Ferran and Raphinha, players who used to play a secondary role in the structure of a team that has also lost forcefulness. It does not have the aim of before, nor does it generate as much as before. Only three goals (two against Cádiz and one against United, the penalty scored by Lewandowski) in the last 270 minutes reveal that worrying drop.
From pillar to expendable
Y Ferran, who came a year ago as the striker on whom reconstruction Barça had to be built (the club paid City 55 million euros at a time when there were not even economic levers activated), he is invested with an essential role. He already feels better, surpassed and, in addition, verbalized his passage through a dark tunnel in which he was abandoned by his football and all his trust is broken.
After intense anonymous psychological work, which he later also wanted to share publicly, Ferran has made “the click”, as Xavi said before the painful defeat in Almería that poisoned the environment. He was already a starter on Sunday, chaining together with Cádiz, two consecutive games in the starting eleven. Something unusual because it hadn’t happened all season as his former prop role gave way to a permanent understudy suit.
His last goal was on November 1
In absence of Lewandowski, who has lost his angel with the goal, Xavi he trusts that Ferran will be reunited with the goal. He has five in 30 games. And the last date in the League on October 23 at the Camp Nou against Athletic. The last two that he held were at Viktoria Pilsen on November 1. Since then, frustration and more frustration. And that the former City striker has scored two goals at the Bernabéu with Xavi on the bench.
He scored in the 0-4 (21-22 season) and in the league defeat this season (3-1). In those four classics with the Terrassa coach, it has been verified how Ferran’s influence has decreased. He started as a left winger in the first, recently arrived at the club, in the Super Cup with a defeat (2-3), forming an attack with Luuk de Jong and Dembele.
He was also a starter in the second, but on the left flank since Dembélé was on the right with Aubameyang acting as ‘nine’. In the last two, a loss in the League and a Barca triumph in the Riyadh Super Cup, he was a substitute: 30 minutes at the Bernabéu and he didn’t even take off his tracksuit in Arabia.
But now, with two youngsters from the subsidiary in the call (Alarcón and Estanis Pedrola), his figure acquires much more value. “I am one of the culprits that he is at Barça, I have every confidence in him wherever he plays”, Xavi stressed, insisting that “against Cádiz he was one of the best and he needed it”.
“I am one of the culprits that Ferran is at Barça, I have every confidence in him wherever he plays. We have blind faith in him”
Fernando needed it. Xavi needed it. Barça needs it. “He has that ability to make a difference and we have blind faith in him,” said the coach, who depends more than ever on the feet of the young man, who has just turned 23, who is determined to show that the tremendous economic investment in times ruinous for the club was not a mistake.