2023-09-30 13:48:54
Xavi Hernández has found his ‘Maginot line’ at the start of the season, but curiously Ronald Araújo is not in it. And of the nine official matches that he has played -eight in LaLiga and one in the Champions League-, only in five has the team not conceded goals, with the curiosity that in three it has been with the same defense. Both against Betis (5-0), and later against Antwerp (5-0) and now against Sevilla (1-0), Xavi opted for a quartet formed by Joao Cancelo on the right wing, a pair of central defenders formed by Jules Koundé and Andreas Christensen, and Alejandro Balde in the left lane. On all three occasions, Marc André Ter Stegen kept a clean sheet.
In the other two matches that they did not concede -Getafe (0-0) and Cádiz (2-0)-, the defenses were circumstances. In the LaLiga premiere, Ronald Araújo was positioned on the right wing, Koundé and Christensen in the center, and Balde, on the left, while in the premiere in Montjuïc, Koundé was the right back, Christensen and Frenkie, the couple in the axis, and Bucket, on the left.
The fact that Xavi has found his wall in these early stages of the season does not mean that he is going to continue it. And everything indicates that Ronald Araújo will return to the eleven against Porto, with whom the Danish Christensen has all the numbers to ‘suck’ the bench. Although evaluating only performance, the Uruguayan center back has been one or two steps below his usual level since he returned from injury. Both in the match against Celta and later against Mallorca, he seemed slower than normal and without the usual confidence in anticipation. That does not mean that Araújo does not continue to be the great bulwark of the team in defense and that Xavi has blind confidence in his possibilities. So much so that his name is already predestined to lead the defense this Wednesday in Porto.
Araújo will be accompanied by Koundé in the central axis and Cancelo and Balde, on the wings. It will be the first time that Xavi lines up this defense, called to be, a priori, the one for the big events this season.
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