BARCELONA (Jordi Blanco, correspondent) – Barcelona took a new step back, who knows if definitively, in LaLiga, obtaining a fatal draw against Valencia (2-2) after a match in which they showed, once again, the worse image. Messy, headless, powerless and without personality, he collapsed in front of an opponent whose order was enough to leave the Camp Nou unharmed, where he could even win after another 90 minutes of penalty at Barça.
He started to lose, he tied with wealth, he came back … And he went back to his old ways of allowing himself to be tied up, the victim of his own lack of control, after doing the most difficult thing, he repeated mistakes reported in this season, not knowing how to defend with the ball, not knowing how to play well. And given to punishment.
Luckily, Barça reached the break even on the scoreboard. He went to the break with the draw, between controversial and lucky, of Lionel Messi, who to reach the historic mark of Pelé, the 643 goals in one team, missed the penalty, disputed, from Gayà to Griezmann and ended up being hit in the head.
Good luck because Ronald Koeman’s team consumed a disastrous first half, without order or concert, in which Valencia forgave or collapsed on Mac Ter Stegen, the opportunity to give a full blow.
Barça appeared with a strange 4-3-3, with theoretically Antoine Griezmann and Martin Braithwaite at the ends and Messi in the middle, ahead of Pedri and Philippe Coutinho in terms of interiors … But in the moment of truth with a considerable traffic jam , trying to enter through the troops Sergiño Dest and Jordi Alba while everyone else, with the absolute freedom of Messi, tried to go to the center, with a lot of presence and without results. You could almost say there are no opportunities.
Valencia’s lack of offensive control was good for him to keep calm and look for the highway that left his opponent broken in the middle when he had the opportunity. So he made Ter Stegen a hero, first rejecting a shell removed from Carlos Soler and almost at the end of the first half, eliminating a poisoned one near Maxi.
And all this added to a piece by Musa in which Maxi stopped him in the first free kick and immediately after that Cherisev did not allow Gayà to shoot. Valencia had them, beyond Diakhaby’s goal towards Soler’s center, ending only in one mistake, another, generalized from Barça’s defense.
Bad in combination, worse in placement and bad in defensive leadership, Barça,
prey to an alarming disorder, he was struck by tragedy until luck appeared in his last breath. Luckily, Messi’s draw opened a new game after the break.
EQUALITY
Not much more orderly, but more determined, Koeman’s group reappeared on the grass, entering Frenkie de Jong (who was left out of the eleven according to Koeman’s assistant due to the discomfort) by Sergio Busquets and looking for a deeper depth in attack.
Soon he found the reward with Araújo’s great goal, which he completed with a beautiful volley shot that came to demonstrate the strangeness of the game, as the ball came to him after Mingueza played it in the opponent’s area. Barça’s second consecutive comeback was suspected this season, but the game was so messy and out of control that it was just as impossible to imagine that the game was decided.
It so happened that in an excellent play by Gayà, reaching 70 minutes and after almost twenty without being able to contemplate an obvious local improvement, the equalizer came with Maxi’s shot, advancing excellently to Mingueza to put a 2-2 which put Koeman’s men back on the ropes.
Barça wanted to reveal themselves against a marked running destiny, trying all the depth they had not had before and combining with De Jong as the anchor of the attacking game, but such a disturbance was contemplated that it is unpredictable to know the result of a crazy game, without rejecting Valencia the opportunity to look against when he had the opportunity.
Barça wanted to win … But they didn’t know. Unable to add three consecutive league victories, he dropped two more points along the way to get closer to the most unhappy Christmas he could have imagined. If the League is not lost, it lacks nothing, so that it can be said that it is so.