The wave that swallows Barça and the world upside down | Relief

After the end of the first half, I thought about what Barcelona’s training must have been like last Thursday.. Hearing Xavi say that the players had had one of the best training sessions of the season inevitably brought to mind the first 45 minutes of the match against Valencia. Javi stays. It has power. Energy. He’s more convinced than ever and has the player on his side. This training session, which no one witnessed, served as irrefutable proof that “The Decision” was correct and that we would see something different on Monday..

We made ourselves comfortable and went to watch the film that we doubted so much, wanting to see something different than what was said in the summary. Already in the announcements we assumed that what we came for was exactly the same as in the rest of the course. Only the name changed, it sounded like blockbuster

strange. Suddenly people began to raise a wave, because the feeling of being in demand among those who go to the village has long ceased to matter, displacing partnerwho basically left Montjuïc to turn the field into a TV. It is normal that Xavi, having a hobby that does not reveal a medical orientation, sees the enthusiasm of the fans.

The first half was exactly how Barcelona would have played in November. Gross individual errors (Ter Stegen and Araujo took the crown), failure to sink the opposition and flexibility, as well as overly scattered defense in marking the line and pushing the team up. In the first dull half hour there was such confusion that Araújo pointed furiously at the ball during the attackas if the mistake in his mind always had a conventional meaning.

. Xavi talked about reacting when the team’s problem is nothing more than identity, and you can’t react if you don’t know what it is. Barça continued to plunge into a scene that has already been seen thousands of times this season and from which it almost always managed to find the perfect way out.

Barça returned from set piece, bombarding the centers with doubts from Jaume Domenech, who gave a performance more typical of a supporting actor than a lead actor unable to control his territory. There was little play, and corners and a second free-kick goal since Messi went off gave Barca a table-deciding win, because what the cooler wants to do with all these games is forget about them. save only what is worth it and to expel from memory, which is selective, all that remains, which is almost everything.

I ask for the next course so that the team reacts less and plays more. Let not all games be like a visit to the dentist, but rather like an excursion in which what is planned and obvious is not what weighs most. Let the wave roll in with the fifth goal and the opponent hanging on the crossbar, and instead of the best training of the season, the coach brags about the best game of the season.