"13 minutes of madness!" Five things to think about as Barcelona beat Alavés
"13 minutes of madness!" Five things to think about as Barcelona beat Alavés
Alaves 1-3 Barcelona - La Liga
Despite a controversial red card for Vitor Roque, Barcelona made it two wins in a row as they calmly dispatched Alaves at Montilivi.
The evening’s entertainment nearly started in a similarly ridiculous fashion to the previous match against Alaves where Samu Omorodion scored 19 seconds into the match. Yesterday Alaves looked to have won a penalty after a similarly short amount of time only for an offside call to save the Blaugrana.
After a rocky first 10 minutes or so, Barcelona found their rhythm and bar a handful of counters when Barça were down to 10 men, saw things out with a relative degree of comfort and recorded a rare two-goal victory.
There were lots of quality performers in Barcelona’s red and yellow Senyera kit, but none moreso than their gallant German genius, Ilkay Gundogan.
1. Big Game Gundogan?
Despite being overlooked by France Football for the Ballon d’Or, UEFA for their Player of the Year and even EA Sports for their Team Of The Year, Ilkay Gundogan was one of the two best midfielders in the world last season (along with his team-mate Rodri) and was a key component of Manchester City’s Treble.
Securing City’s captain on a free transfer was a huge coup for Barcelona. And for sure, Gundogan has shown his class on multiple occasions for Xavi’s men this season, but with the exception of the season’s first Clásico and the Las Palmas game, we’ve not really seen the goalscoring genius he so often displayed for Pep Guardiola, especially in the run-ins at the end of seasons (he scored 6 times in his last 10 games for City, including a cup-winning brace in the FA Cup final).
He’s been more profligate for Barcelona. Consider that just three days ago he headed the ball wide when he was unmarked from 5 yards out. And has missed a whole host of chances through the season. So when Pedri waited, and waited, and waited before flipping the ball to him at the back-post, no one could have expected him to volley the ball into the roof of the net.
But he did just that! His fifth goal of the season was a stupendous finish giving Barcelona a two-goal cushion (that they needed, as it turns out, given Alaves scored two minutes later).
There was also his brilliantly weighted assist to Robert Lewandowski as he picked the ball up just ahead of the Alaves defence and threaded a delicious pass through for the Pole. His ninth assist of the season was a touch of class, and along with his goal felt like the German midfielder announcing that he was going into big game mode.
If he can keep that up? Barcelona may yet end the season on a high!
2. Andreas Busquetsensen
The biggest reason that Gundogan was able to be such an attacking force for Manchester City was that he played alongside Rodri, who was a genuine defensive midfielder. That gave him license to alternate forward runs with Kevin de Bruyne.
At Barcelona, due to the departure of Sergio Busquets, the poor performances of Oriol Romeu and the injury of Gavi, Gundogan has had to play much closer to his own goal.
Not last night, however. Thanks to the presence of Andreas Christensen. Due to injuries basically all over the pitch, as well as the rising prominence of Pau Cubarsi, Xavi decided to play Christensen as a defensive midfielder.
And hey, guess what? It worked!
Turns out having someone with fantastic defensive awareness patrolling the pivot spot is a good idea? Christensen sensed danger in a way that Gundogan and Frenkie de Jong often don’t, and he had the physical power to win duels as well. On the ball he wasn’t his usual self, but some time may be needed to fully adapt. Playing pivot for Denmark (as he has done before) is not like playing pivot for Barcelona.
But this is clearly the best of a bunch of bad solutions for the Blaugrana. Given the emergence of Pau Cubarsi and Iñigo Martinez’s recent return from injury, there is enough cover at the back to allow Christensen to step up and be the pivot Barcelona’s creative midfielders need him to be.
That’s the big selling point, really. It wasn’t even that Christensen was great, it was that he was good and by virtue of being there, he allowed Frenkie de Jong, Pedri and Ilkay Gundogan to play further forward between the lines. The move for Lewandowski’s goal going from Pedri to De Jong to Gundogan, cutting their way through Alaves, perfectly exemplified that.
3. Jules Kounde’s physical health
Of course, despite Christensen helping protect the middle of the pitch and unleash their fancy boys, Barcelona were still vulnerable down the flanks as Alaves let rip a ridiculous record 40 crosses against them.
For the most part Barcelona defended these crosses well, but part of why they kept coming in was largely down to Barcelona’s poor play at full-back.
Now, the reasons for left-back being a defensive issue is obvious: Alejandro Balde is injured and Joao Cancelo is half-fit and not even a great defender to begin with.
But on the right, Jules Kounde is a world-class defender, so why did he struggle so much 1-v-1 against Alaves’ wingers? Often the Frenchman looked like he was on skates out there, and it’s not the first-time.
Well, remember the start of the season where Kounde was playing centre-back and doing it so absurdly well that Xavi couldn’t justify moving him to accomodate Ronald Araujo in the middle? Yeah. Remember how he picked up a knee injury against Granada and missed around 3 weeks? Remember how that was supposed to be a month but after the Clasico defeat he rushed back to play?
Yeah, he hasn’t looked the same since then, has he? And he’s played pretty much every game as well. Okay, some lovely crosses (including in the reverse game against Alaves) but defensively, something has been off. He’s not been bad, but he’s definitely not at his usual level. Last night he was getting ripped by everyone and didn’t look like he could keep up with wingers.
97 Passes are not medical professionals, but it wouldn’t come as a surprise if, when the season is over, Jules Kounde reveals his knee injury never fully healed and that he played through the pain to help the club and now needs surgery to correct a problem.
4. “13 minutes of madness!” from Vitor Roque
Vitor Roque was the game-winning hero midweek against Osasuna, coming off the bench to score a delightful header with a near-post run.
Against Alaves he was at it again, albeit this time with that other rare thing from a Barcelona forward: an early, first-time shot!
Introduced in the 59th minute, less than five minutes later he received a neat cutback from Hector Fort and instead of faffing around trying to get it onto his stronger right-foot or find a perfect angle, he contorted his body and slotted it beautifully into the far bottom corner of the net beyond the despairing dive of the goalkeeper.
An incredible finish and yet another sign that his presence is going to truly energise and enliven Barcelona (even beyond the fact that him scoring goals clearly lit a fire under Robert Lewandowski given how cleanly the Pole took his goal in the first-half).
Something the referee clearly wasn’t happy with.
To be fair, Vitor Roque is clearly a combative forward. He loves to press and use his body and play hard, but so do a great many other players in La Liga.
With that in mind, and considering the referee had been letting a lot of rough stuff go in the game, for Vitor Roque to get booked for using his arm to shove a defender out of the way seemed soft. It wasn’t like he hit him in the face, it was an elbow that incidentally struck the defender in the chest! But ok, you’ve seen them given.
The second yellow, however, was preposterous. With the ball running loose, Vitor Roque went into a challenge with Rafa Marin, who dove in two-footed with his studs showing. Not wanting to hurt the defender, Vitor Roque pulled out of the challenge.
Even though he was withdrawing, his foot made light contact with Rafa Marin and he was subsequently shown a baffling second yellow and thus a red card. The Brazilian was trying to avoid contact! It was barely a foul let alone a second yellow card! Rafa Marin has since posted a photo of the cut on his leg on social media, captioning it “images that speak for themselves” — but the idea that contact in a contact sport should warrant a second yellow is utterly ludicrous.
To make matters even more absurd, Pedri was fouled about 5 seconds earlier in the attack and the referee should have blown for a foul there. And even if he was playing advantage, the first thing he should do when the play breaks down is call that advantage back and give Barcelona the free-kick! Not send off a teenage striker who was just trying to avoid contact.
The commentator called it “13 minutes of madness” and, to be fair, that about sums it up. Pure chaotic match-changing energy. The kind that Barcelona will miss next week against Granada if their appeal (they’re blatantly going to appeal) is unsuccessful.
5. Barça Babies making the difference once again
18 year-old Vitor Roque came off the bench and scored Barcelona’s third goal. A decisive contribution from the teenager still finding his feet in La Liga.
Incredibly, he wasn’t the only teen to come off the bench and be decisive. 17 year-old Hector Fort replaced Joao Cancelo at half-time and bar a couple of early jitters, was once again a solid presence in defence. Hell, he was the one who set Vitor Roque up with a nice low cutback!
And he wasn’t the only 17 year-old that excelled for Barcelona in Montilivi, as Pau Cubarsi started the match and despite having to deal with the moving man mountain that is Samu Omorodion, and despite giving away a penalty 20 seconds into the game only to be bailed out by an offside call, he was unreal!
The ease with which Cubarsi plays centre-back is honestly ridiculous given his youth. There’s no doubt he has a lot to learn in terms of jockeying opponents, winning aerial duels, all of that stuff — but have you seen this kid in the tackle? He’s so strong! And with the ball? He’s nerveless! He passes the ball any distance, any speed, any direction. It just does not matter. The kid was born to play for Barcelona.
Absurdly, he wasn’t the youngest performer on the pitch for Barcelona as 16 year-old Lamine Yamal was once again out of this world. How is this kid 16?? He was driving at Alaves defenders all game long, carrying the ball up the field like a seasoned veteran. Barcelona’s second and third goals both involved great forward bursts from El Prodigi, and there was even one run where he chucked a Zinedine Zidane-style roulette spin in there to evade pressure. He’s 16!!
Barcelona need to rest him, really, but literally all three of their others wingers are injured right now so there isn’t anyone who could take his place! On the plus side there’s a week until the next game, but Xavi may have to start thinking of creative solutions because there’s no way this kid should be playing every week!
There was also 20 year-old Fermin Lopez who came on and looked feisty. Oh, and even though he’s an established veteran of the side now it shouldn’t be forgotten that the glorious genius that is Pedri, he of the floaty assist to Ilkay Gundogan, is only 21 years-old himself.
Finally, although at 24 years-old he hardly counts as a baby anymore, Iñaki Peña joined in with the actual kids and was actually good against Alavés!
Alright he’s still no Ter Stegen, but he came off his line more than once to claim crosses and take the pressure off his defence! That and the mega save he made after a Kounde mistake gave Jon Guridi a point-blank header should fill him with confidence, which is always good given no one knows when the German goalie will return.