Barcelona lost 1-3 to Real Madrid in the El Clasico match at the Camp Nou. Instead of blaming VAR and Sergio Ramos drama, Barcelona deserve more to worry about their readiness, especially the back line to face this season.
Barcelona’s back line deserves to be the party to blame for this painful defeat to Real Madrid in El Clasico. Barcelona defenders failed to display a thick wall to ward off Madrid attacks.
This is coupled with carelessness so that Sergio Ramos, who is full of tricks and experience, can maximize this well.
In the fifth minute, Barcelona’s back line lost its focus in anticipating Real Madrid’s attack.
Los Blancos’ attack was simple, but then became dangerous because of Barcelona’s weak back line coordination.
The disaster began with Nacho Fernandez’s pass towards Karim Benzema. Marco Asensio moved down the left of the Barcelona defense as Benzema started to dribble. There was no intention of Barcelona players to immediately close down Benzema’s movement. They are all just shadowing.
Barcelona’s mistake, they didn’t see Valverde running fast from the middle of the field. Sergio Busquets was unable to catch up, Pique tried to close down Benzema, and Clement Lenglet was instead wary of Asensio who was on the outside.
As a result, a pass from Benzema made Valverde stand free in the penalty box. Slick finishing put Real Madrid 1-0 up.
After successfully equalizing the score to 1-1, the defeats of the two Barcelona back lines returned to Real Madrid’s favor in the second half, to be precise in the 62nd minute.
In VAR era football, defending players can no longer be idle and ignorant in guarding opponents, including through the pull of clothes. If they run into an opponent who is good at acting like Sergio Ramos, they’ll be doomed.
Feeling that his shirt was being pulled by Lenglet, Sergio Ramos did the best he could. Falls full of drama even though the pull is not too strong and he is in a state of not having the ball.
After that moment, Madrid protested and asked the referee to look at the VAR. In the replay, referee Juan Martinez Munuera certainly saw that there was indeed a shirt pulled by Lenglet to Sergio Ramos.
The referee could clearly point to the spot on the assumption that the pull of the shirt could interfere with Sergio Ramos’ effort to catch the pass.
Sergio Ramos completed the action perfectly because his penalty execution successfully shook the goal. Sergio Ramos cleverly took advantage of Lenglet’s carelessness that shouldn’t have required a pull.
Sergio Ramos’ goal was obviously crucial because it made the score 2-1. In the 1-1 conditions, Barcelona banged on the Real Madrid defense and produced a number of dangerous opportunities.
Meanwhile, after trailing 1-2, Barcelona did not present many threats. Real Madrid are the ones eager to get the third goal in the remaining time.
Barcelona’s poor back line was further demonstrated by Real Madrid’s third goal.
Neto, who had previously made some brilliant saves, made the mistake too. The ball he tried to catch during his duel with Vinicius Jr. free.
Rodrygo then pushed the ball towards Modric. Modric then played with Neto before kicking into the net which Pique and Sergino Dest tried to close. Modric scored and Real Madrid returned 3-1.
Barcelona may not accept this defeat and appoint VAR to be the scapegoat, but before that they must first realize that their back line is really a concern.
