From Alves a Sunrise. From side to side. From the right of the Brazilian to the left of Jordi Alba to put Barça in the last breath in the Champions of the next season. A great goal to bury a night in which all the ghosts were uncovered for a team that lived under contradiction. It was a bad game resolved by that phenomenal shot from the left side, celebrated as if it were a goal that gave a title.
The game was dying, already in added time, when adama He assisted with a heel for Alves, who detected the incorporation of Alba on the other end, and he invented a shot that shook the Betis net uncovering scenes of euphoria, as the players needed to celebrate something. He is in the Champions League and now the objective is to consolidate second position, which opens the door for him to the Spanish Super Cup and, above all, eight million euros. Ansu appeared first, then Jordi Alba to fix what they had previously spoiled with their bad game.
Corridor to Betis
The game started with the Barça corridor. A hallway led by Xavi, the first to receive the Betis players along with his starting eleven. A corridor that had Mateu Lahoz in last place, the referee who did not want to miss that act of recognition of the recent Copa del Rey champion. It is strange that the coach is there, the first one who promoted the gesture towards the Andalusians. But more strange and unusual is to see the referee as if he were one more of the azulgranas. Completed the hallway, the party got under way. There was no midfield. The ball came and went without even passing through the center of the field, both teams using a vertical model that fled from pause and calm, causing uncertainty in Pellegrini and Xavi.
The Betis coach did not like that his team did not have the ball, accustomed as he is to pampering and cradling it. To the Barça coach, more of the same. When the half hour of the game arrived, the danger came in strategic actions. When the ball stopped is when Bravo and Rui Silva (the Chilean goalkeeper was replaced due to injury after a quarter of an hour) and Neto, Ter Stegen’s substitute, had a worse time.
A header from Pezella was easily caught by the Barça goalkeeper, while Rui Silva, as soon as he came out onto the pitch, left an impressive save against an impressive header from Araujo, the center back who was, in reality, the most dangerous striker. Then the defenses began to falter. Especially that of Barça, who lived an ordeal every time that Fekir and Canales allied themselves with the ball. They played wonderfully, but they finished off poorly. And when the shot was good, it hit the woodwork, as happened with Guido Rodríguez’s right foot from outside the area when the right post saved Neto from an upset. Before, it had been the crossbar that avoided the problem for Rui Silva.
Ferran, irrelevant
This is how the night passed, which began with fair play in an elegant corridor and a festive atmosphere in the temple of Beticismo, together with the final hours of the Seville Fair, although it faded afterwards. And that Xavi modified the offensive structure by placing Aubameyang on the Benito Villamarín bench, again choosing Memphis as the left winger. Dembele? It is not discussed. The owner of the right band. And Fernando Torres? He played nine or ‘false nine’ without any weight in the match, converted into an irrelevant piece.
That energy that the azulgranas transmitted was consumed in the last quarter of an hour of the first chapter, with the defense breaking down before tactical details as simple and as evident as Bartra’s exit from the cave riding into the open field without feeling pursued by anyone. Barça was disarming. No spark, no game, the Dembélé effect evaporated, gaseous at the beginning, without bubbles afterwards. But he was the only one who tried because there was no trace of the midfield, while the full-backs (Alves and Alba) were not dangerous in attack, in addition to being punished, and too often, by their backs. The black hole of a worn team without any soul.
His football had a bureaucratic air. Sad and melancholic bureaucratic air, without even feeling the necessary stimulus to react in the final stretch of a season full of ups and downs that have undermined the self-esteem of a group that is already in the process of decomposition. He left, for example, just three shots in 45 minutes, two of them on goal: Araujo’s header masterfully saved by Rui Silva, with the help of the crossbar, and the caracole prior to Memphis’s right from outside the area, also repelled with tino by Rui Silva.
The same thing happened in the second half. At least, in the beginning. Just three minutes into the game and childish errors, a control by Dembélé or a drive by Eric Garcia that ended badly with an erroneous pass to Memphis. That caused Xavi to despair. The technician was furious. Indignant. The demons took him away. Each lost ball was a stab wound for the coach. And so many and so many were lost….
Xavi changed the whole attack. He went from Dembélé, Ferran-Memphis to Adama-Aubameyang-Ansu Fati. And in a minute Ansu’s goal came to relieve a team that was stunned. But happiness for the Catalans is never complete because in a foul, served in an extraordinary way by Fekir, it caused a header from Bartra to seal the tie, a symbol of the mismanagement that shook Xavi’s team. He didn’t know how to dominate with the 0-1, but he ended up winning the game with that wonderful left foot from Alba to take Barcelona to the noble zone of Europe.
Data sheet
BETIS: Bravo (sc), Sabaly (6), Pezzella (5), Bartra (8, A. Moreno (5), Guido Rodríguez (6), Guardado (6), Canales (6), Fekir (6), Juanmi ( 5) and Borja Iglesias (6).
Technical: Manuel Pellegrini (6)
Changes: Rui Silva (8) for Bravo (m. 16); William Carvalho (sc) by Juanmi (d. 78); Rodri (sc) by Guardado (m. 78)
BARCELONA: Neto (6), Alves (4), Araujo (7), Eric Garcia (5), Jordi Alba (9), Frenkie de Jong (5), Busquets (5), Gavi (4), Dembélé (4), Ferran Torres (4) and Memphis (5).
Technical: Xavi Hernandez (5)
Changes: Aubameyang (5) for Memphis (d. 65); Ansu Fati (8) by Ferran Torres (m. 74); Adama (5) by Dembélé (m. 74): Riqui Puig (sc) by Gavi (m. 80).
goals: 0-1, Ansu Fati (d. 77); 1-1, Bartra (d. 79); 1-2, Jordi Alba (d. 90+3).
Referee: Mateu Lahoz (5).
Yellow cards: Busquets (d. 65); Bartra (d. 72); Alves (d. 78)
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Stadium: Benito Villamarin.
spectators: 46,132.