Barcelona’s 1-0 victory over Real Madrid in the first leg of the Spanish Copa del Rey semifinal at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium opened up hope for the Catalan team to advance to the final. The reason is, the second leg will take place at Camp Nou and several important injured players have the opportunity to return to join the team.
Barca’s performance at the Santiago Bernabeu was not so convincing. Barca game can not develop. The touch of tika-taka disappears. Instead, it was Madrid who dominated the match. Barca only controlled 33 percent of the game. Barca’s winning goal was born through a counterattack scenario.
Several times Madrid tried to penetrate Barca’s defense and made Barca’s back and midfield work extra hard to dispel Madrid’s attacks. In fact, because Barca’s back line was so tight, several times Luca Modric and his colleagues made speculative shots from outside the 16th line.
Hence, Barca’s victory at home to Madrid revealed a shortcoming that could make it difficult for Barca to win the title this season. First: Gap between Core Players and Unbalanced Overlay Players.
Barca visited Madrid with a fairly lame squad. Mainstay players such as Pedri, Robert Lewandowski and Ousmane Dembele are still injured. As a result, Xavi entrusted Ferran Torres, Rapinha and Gavi in midfield.
The performance of this trio on the front lines was not so convincing. Torres failed to play the role left by Lewandowski. This Spanish national team player several times was less adept at reading Rapinha’s cross, or also placed the wrong position when his teammate wanted to feed him.
Torres is just one example, where Barça’s understudy players can be an obstacle in maintaining a level of consistency to keep performing well. Luckily for Barca, who chose to play defensively and rely on counterattacks to win.
For this reason, Xavi has a big enough job to build a squad that has a balanced strength, both regular players and those on the bench.
Second: Loss of Forefront Intensity. Lewandowski has become Barca’s mainstay in terms of scoring goals this season. The absence of this player from Poland left a big hole. Even when Lewandowski is locked or not playing at the best level, Barça’s goal tap seems to be drying up too.
The defeat to Almeria in the Spanish La Liga last week was one of the proofs. This includes when Barca were knocked out of the European Cup at the hands of Manchester United. Lewandowski didn’t shine because his movement was locked and his colleagues didn’t really support his movement. Lewandowski’s intensity has decreased somewhat since Dembele was absent.
Dembele’s fast movement and penetration on the right side of Barca’s attack offset Lewandowski’s ingenuity and speed as the number 9 striker. Rapinha, Ansu Fati and Torres have failed to play that. Rapinha at least had the courage to penetrate and cross. Fati and Torres still need to adapt to a game that requires intensity to attack.
The tendency of these players is to control the ball and not be so daring to penetrate to damage the opponent’s defense as Dembele often does. Lewandowski has consistently scored goals at Bayern Munich before because he was supported by a fast pattern of play, emphasizing fast movement from the right side and direct and fast ball flow from midfield.
This is not so visible so far. Sometimes Barca is fixated on playing from foot to foot, and making movements at the back of the opponent’s back it’s easy to lock the movement of Barca’s attackers. Barca lost the intensity. This is Xavi’s challenge in utilizing his players to play faster.
Third: Doubts on the Existence of Ferran Torres and Ansu Fati. Ferran Torres and Ansu Fati can be seen as the future of Barcelona. Both players are still young and are always given a place by Xavi. However, these two players experienced a significant decline.
In fact, the opportunities for these two players to play are so great because Xavi is willing to allow strikers like Memphis Depay and Pierre Emerick Aubameyang to leave Barca. Practically, the competition on the front lines is not so strong.
However, every time given the opportunity these two young players failed to shine. Torres, who was asked as the sole striker when playing against Madrid, did not pose too much of a threat.
It’s the same with Ansu Fati, who entered in the second half. Even this La Masia-trained player made a fatal mistake when he accidentally blocked Frenkie Kessie’s shot. If not blocked, Barca could win 2-0 over Madrid.
Fati and Torres seem to have lost confidence. The place can be shifted. Evidently, when Lewandowski is fit, Xavi has prefers Gavi as a winger instead of trusting Fati or Torres. Torres and Fati failed to get to the best stage when entrusted with playing against eternal rival Barca. This also strengthens doubts about the ability of these two players to be retained or allowed to leave at the end of the upcoming season.
A 1-0 victory for Barca is not yet a sufficiently secure capital. Barca still has a big task to serve Madrid in the second leg at Camp Nou. If only playing at home could be a blessing, not a disaster for Xavi and his foster children.
ASL
