Three golden points for a Barça that is too soft to compete in Europe: Time.news, goals and result

2023-10-04 22:56:30

Porto-Barça of Champions

Thanks to a moment of light from Ferran Torres, Xavi’s team took a big win in the worst game of the season (0-1)

Special envoy to Porto Three golden points for a Barça still too soft to compete in Europe (0-1). Do Dragão showed the seams of a team that was missing its best players, the injured Pedri and Frenkie de Jong. Xavi Hernández’s team will be able to look at the league table for the group stage and breathe a sigh of relief after two wins in two games, but they return to Barcelona with a sea of ​​doubts. A Porto without many familiar faces showed that Barça is still far from intimidating and commanding respect in Europe. A moment of light from Ferran Torres, decisive in a team that adds Lewandowski to the infirmary and that will lose Gavi to expulsion, allows the Blaugrana to return from their visit to Porto with a more fortunate than deserved trophy.

While in the Spanish League talent is dwindling due to the strict economic regulations of Javier Tebas, with many clubs collated by fair play apart from Barça, Europe is the mirror in which to know whether you have woken up refreshed and rested, ready to face the day with energy, or have woken up after a long nightmare and the best thing you can do is cheat the day without shame or glory In Porto, Barça got off on the left foot, until Ferran’s lucky bite meant washing his face with very cold water and reacting. With a dedicated Do Dragão stadium, which was beating with every recovery of its own, which was venting by whistling and shouting at João Félix for his past at Benfica, Xavi’s team was seen to have many fears and complexes. The recurring ghosts of the Champions League.

It hurt the Barça fan to see how Porto, nowadays a second tier team in Europe despite their status as two champions (1987 and 2004), bit more under pressure and intimidated more from the opening whistle. Oriol Romeu, in his first tenure in the Champions League in more than a decade, lived through a particular hell. His legs were shaking at the start of the ball, and he chained error after error. In the defensive correction, Ulldecona’s wasn’t good either. To make any comparison with Sergio Busquets is to cheat the solitaire. But Romeu was so outmatched that Xavi brought Gündogan down from inside to pivot so that he could start the construction of the play. But nothing accompanied it. Barça neither moved the ball with rhythm, nor pressed successfully. The Blaugrana were fed up of suffering in several slides to the counterattack of the Portuguese. In less than half an hour Cancelo, Araujo and Gavi saw the yellow card.

El Barça is fa petit to Do Dragão

Porto pressed with a vehemence, order and intensity typical of a European rival. Barça was getting smaller and smaller at Do Dragão. He was a giant with feet of clay in front of a group of players without any stars but who, encouraged by their people on a big night in the Champions League, ran, fought and performed at a great level. Their passes were more accurate, their strikers controlled the balls more accurately and their defenders were more confident. In short: Porto was being better than Barça. The Blaugrana couldn’t even give their rival a little bit of a scare, beyond some strike from João Félix. On the other hand, Sérgio Conceição’s team kept getting closer to the goal. Without generating clear opportunities, but causing that uncomfortable tingling that runs through your whole body, like a harbinger that something bad is about to happen.

But one of the most addictive components of football is that there is no scripted narrative, instead the writers can be mean to those who least deserve it. Everything could happen in a beautiful stadium, which had welcomed the fans with an almost pink sky, in a fantasy city, where university students dress in black tunics and fado seeks a crack to enter your soul. Where the screenwriters make and undo and, Barça was touched on the cute side of history without deserving it. At the end of the first half, while Ferran Torres had jumped onto the pitch just a handful of minutes ago for the injured Lewandowski, Baro fell asleep and Gündogan, one of the few players who can be saved from the visit to Porto, blew his ball

The continuation of the story was written by Ferran: control with the right, finished with the left. A beautiful goal away from the poor game that Barça was showing, where only the aforementioned Gündogan and the very young Lamine Yamal knew what to do with the ball. The best news at the break was the score. And at the restart nothing changed. The Blaugrana team continued to show an unworthy game if they want to regain respect in the Champions League, while Porto crashed again and again in the hands of Ter Stegen or in the long legs of Araujo and Kounde, who were sick of taking water out of the boat.

Fortune sided with the Blaugrana again, because Cancelo, in his worst game since he arrived at Barça, saw how after the VAR review he was freed from committing a penalty for his hands. The ball had slightly brushed Eustaquio’s before. Barça were spending a new life at the same time as they lost Lamine Yamal to a gastric indisposition and Gavi was sent off for a second yellow card. Paddle, suffer and survive in Porto. Three golden points. Lots of homework to do.