Pessimists no longer have anyone to write to them. We are obviously referring to the culés. Barça under Flick is on a roll with no complaints worth mentioning. The blaugrana group has started the season like a rocket. At Mestalla, once a pressure cooker now turned inward, it seemed like a win before it even started once the lineup was known. Rodri and Lamine Yamal, starters. The best player of the last World Cup and one of the most amazing breakthroughs ever seen from a young footballer.
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If that were all.
When it is announced that Rodri and Lamine are starters, it is hard to think Barça will not win
Barça has reached a point where, in addition to those intimidating names for anyone, it adds a team that has been sculpting itself for two years to feel ready for anything. Now it is. A large squad to play two matches a week (there are about twenty potential starters), a coach with total power in the locker room and aerial coverage in the box, and an increasingly polished football idea that has not lost its original intention along the way: vertigo, high defense, and subjugation of the opponent. What happens now is that all movements are more precise and the risks, consequently, more controlled. With the ball, Barça attacks with everything and everyone at a devilish speed. On TV it is a joy but for opponents, a nightmare. The combinations of Lamine Yamal, Raphinha, Gordon, and Fermín at the edge or already inside the area are very hard to anticipate, especially when executed with the first touch. Triangles, squares, and walls. Geometry. Fermín looks possessed. Not playing in the World Cup has made him a voracious footballer, as if he were owed something.
If that were all.
Not playing in the World Cup has made Fermín a voracious footballer, as if he were owed something
When Barça loses the ball, it organizes by memory. It occupies designated spaces to suffocate its rivals with small but intense collective runs. Order has been accentuated in this sense with the arrival of Rodri, a player-chief. Pedri is his squire now, which is like having a prime minister as your right hand. The balls recovered at the feet of these two guys are velvet. You don’t gamble one away.
If that were all.
At the back of this whole setup is the Catalan defense, which is not a chess move but Joan Garcia, Eric Garcia, Cubarsí, Gerard Martín, and Xavi Espart together. It is a fact to be proud of and accentuates the exceptionality of this team, since in addition to the excellence of their play, it adds a sense of proximity. That is, pride of belonging. Apart from that, they defend fabulously, which is what it’s about.
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The only fear in Valencia was that Gordon might faint under that scorching heat. And it didn’t happen.
Everything described about this Barcelona serves, by contrast, to define Valencia. What some have in excess, others haven’t tasted for years. Salvador Enguix already warned us in a devastating article titled “The Collapse of Valencia,” an accurate radiography of a deep social, economic, and obviously sporting crisis.
While they were handing out the lineups with Rodri’s first start, the stands were already hearing “Peter go now” directed at the club owner, Peter Lim. All the pessimists in the world are in Valencia.
