Four quick things as Barcelona win four in a row
Four quick things as Barcelona win four in a row
Barcelona 1-0 Las Palmas - La Liga
Barcelona won their fourth consecutive on Saturday night, beating Las Palmas 1-0 at Estadi Lluis Companys thanks to a Raphinha goal.
This is the first time since September that Xavi’s side have managed to string four consecutive wins together across all competitions, and it moves them to within five points of Real Madrid atop the table in La Liga, albeit as of writing Los Blancos have a game in-hand against Athletic Club.
Here are four quick things:
Shades of last season
Last season Barcelona won like a billion games 1-0 as they ground their way to an emphatic if somewhat unspectacular title win. It led to many jokes, with even Cholo Simeone got in on the act.
“Today I hear from many strategists who like a beautiful game that 1-0 is also beautiful.” — Diego Simeone
Sure, a team as synonymous with beautiful football grinding out a bunch of 1-0’s is funny, but the truth is those scorelines should have been more dominant but Barcelona’s finishing was often lacking last season but lucky for them their defence was rock solid and opponents could find no purchase so one goal was enough.
Which is also an accurate description of what happened against Las Palmas. Barcelona bossed the game from start to finish, aided of course by opposition goalkeeper Alvaro Valles getting sent off just 24 minutes into the game for scything down Raphinha.
But Barcelona couldn’t make his replacement suffer. They had the chances, but only took one. A wonderfully deft header from Raphinha after a delicious looped pass from super-sub João Felix.
“We are struggling to finish games this season. We had several chances to put the game away.” — Xavi
If the goal triggered a sense of deja vu in you it’s because this is the seventh time Raphinha has scored the opening goal of the game for Xavi — only Lewandowski has done it more. It’s also because Barcelona scored almost exactly the same goal a year ago in March 2023. Then it was Sergio Busquets looping the ball over the Valencia defence for Raphinha to run on to and nod past the goalie.
Yesterday it was the Portuguese, and the Blaugrana’s entire display, a kind of weird faffing and frustrating energy with their shots keeping the score close but also a robust defensive display where you were fairly sure they weren’t going to concede (unlike most of this season where disaster has felt imminent) was also eerily reminiscent of 2022/23.
All in all this was Barcelona’s fourth win in a row across all competitions, which is good form, but in La Liga it is also their fifth clean sheet in a row. For a side that was defensively leaking like American, French and Israeli ships in the Gulf of Aden, that’s a welcome improvement as the team rolls into the crucial month of the season.
LeWHYndowski and “The FIFA Virus”
Of course, a major reason why the game wasn’t done and dusted by the half-hour mark is because Robert Lewandowski dropped an absolute stinker.
On the one hand, La Liga’s biggest xG underperformer missing a host of chances to score goals shouldn’t be a surprise, but Lewandowski had found himself in a reasonable bit of form before the recent international break.
He had been playing well, contributing to the team and looking sharp. He had 7 goals in 10 games including in both legs against Napoli and a devastatingly good finish in the big win over Atlético Madrid.
But then came the international break.
Barcelona have long feared “the FIFA virus” although usually because it means their players come back exhausted and physically broken. Pedri hasn’t been the same since Luis de la Fuente took him to the Olympics in the same summer Luis Enrique took him to the Euros. And Gavi returned from the Autumn international break with a horrific cruciate ligament injury.
Nothing that bad happened this time (well, Lamine Yamal played 90 minutes in a pointless friendly and thus looked exhausted last night) but Lewandowski had to grind out two wins with Poland. A 5-1 against Estonia and a penalty triumph after a 0-0 slog against Wales. He scored no goals, and didn’t really play well.
“The first goal that got disallowed? In my opinion it’s a goal.” — Raphinha
All that form, gone in an instant. And so against Las Palmas he spluttered. His touch was off, he couldn’t outmuscle defenders, and his finish? Oh god! It was horrendous. He couldn’t get the measure of any shots and he even fluffed a point-blank headed chance from just five yards, shouldering the ball over.
Honestly the smartest thing he did was walk off the pitch with such absurd sluggishness that he was booked for time-wasting, ensuring a suspension and thus rest for the Cadiz game between both legs of the Champions League tie and, of course, making sure he can’t be suspended for El Clásico.
Xavi will have to hope the Champions League anthem and the 10 days rest he now has ahead of that PSG clash will be enough to get his star striker into the form Barcelona will need him in, because if he plays that poorly against PSG or Real Madrid then the Blaugrana simply are not going to win.
Pau Cubarsi (yes, again!)
As much as Lewandowski was a gigantic loser against Las Palmas, Barcelona kept a clean sheet! And what’s more impressive is they did it without Ronald Araujo. This is the second time in March they managed such a feat and the reason for it was once again Pau Cubarsi. The 17 year-old boy wonder of the back-line.
#CuBaresi was almost flawless against Las Palmas. There were a couple of jitters early, maybe he came in with a bit too much confidence after making his debut with Spain, but he soon settled and went about shutting down the Las Palmas attack.
He defended with such maturity you genuinely couldn’t tell which of the centre-backs was the 32 year-old veteran with over a decade of experience in La Liga.
“I remember when I made my debut, but what these young players are doing is incredible. I’m so proud of them and all the players that have come through La Masia.” — Sergi Roberto
Cubarsi was 4 years-old when Iñigo Martinez made his debut in La Liga for Real Sociedad, four! But yesterday he stood as his equal in the back-line both with and without the ball.
The teenager’s continuing excellence in possession is genuinely breathtaking. On a night when Gerard Piqué (with son Milan in tow) visited the Barcelona dressing room, Pau Cubarsi played with a typically Piqué level of assurance with the ball.
This kid was shrugging off the Las Palmas press, bisecting lines with the ball. Whether on the deck or lofting it through the air, Cubarsi made the right decision with it. He was so good there’s probably no doubt in Xavi’s mind that he will be the one to partner Ronald Araujo against PSG, such is his importance to the way Barça play football both defensively and offensively.
The team is taking shape with PSG and Madrid looming
Xavi has had a difficult job this season trying to get Barcelona to play coherent football. A large reason for that has been injury constantly disrupting his plans. Just as he settles on a line-up or shape, an injury breaks things and he has to start again.
But with the three biggest games of Barcelona’s season coming up, two against PSG and the Clásico at the Santiago Bernabeu, his team is starting to take shape.
Marc-André Ter Stegen is the man between the sticks, and as much as Iñaki Peña did a decent job, Xavi will be glad to have the German back.
The back four is certain to be Jules Kounde at right-back (excellent again yesterday, the dude is back to his world-class best), Cubarsi and Araujo in the middle and João Cancelo on the left — albeit Hector Fort will come in against Cadiz as Cancelo picked up a suspension to ensure he doesn’t miss the Clásico.
“For several matches, Jules Kounde has been close to excellence, I am very happy with him.” — Xavi
Up-front the preferred alignment for Xavi seems to be Lamine Yamal on the right, Robert Lewandowski up-front and Raphinha on the left. It remains to be seen if Xavi uses this for all three games as that’s a lot of physical burden to put on young Lamine Yamal’s shoulders (and he surely looked tired against Las Palmas) but it seems to work.
Raphinha has had a mixed bag of a career at Barcelona. He’s never kicked on to become an undisputed starter and has often just been straight-up outplayed on the right, first by Ousmane Dembélé and now by Lamine Yamal. However playing left-wing opens up a whole new potential for the Brazilian, because it allows him to play in a more narrow capacity and be on the ball less.
Raphinha’s biggest weakness is that he can’t dribble. He’s just rubbish 1v1 and defenders know this so let him have the ball, slowing Barcelona’s play down.
However when he’s on the left he doesn’t get to be the playmaker as much. This is usually because play builds up through Lamine Yamal on the right or, if it’s on the left, Cancelo is the guy in command of things. This means Raphinha is doing what he does best: running off the ball, pressing and shooting.
He was influential against Napoli from the left, and yesterday he was also effective off the left. He scored once, but that was weirdly ruled out for being offside even though it was clearly a different phase of play and was a menace to Las Palmas in general.
It works. It’s perhaps not an ideal solution and Barcelona would be fools to not try and recruit Nico Williams this summer as the speculation says they will, but for now Raphinha is much better on the left than the right.
“Even without Lewandowski, Cancelo, and Iñigo in Cádiz, we will compete the same.” — Xavi
Midfield is the one area where things may change for Barcelona. Obviously the 10 day gap now gives time for Frenkie de Jong and Pedri to make a case to start as both are in the last stages of their injury recovery, but given the intensity those games are played at it’s hard to see Xavi just throwing them both back in.
Pedri for sure will be a sub in all three games if he plays at all. The young Spanish genius is in need of a season of carefully managed minutes and very targeted training to build his muscle strength up to the level where he can sustain consecutive 90 minutes of football without fear of hamstring tears.
Frenkie de Jong may end up featuring more, simply because his injury didn’t seem as serious and he is generally a more physically robust character.
However as it stands Xavi’s preferred line-up is Sergi Roberto or Andreas Christensen at the base of midfield next to Ilkay Gundogan, and Fermin Lopez as a pressing and running machine further up the pitch.
This isn’t the perfect set-up, of course. But against Las Palmas we saw the benefits. Roberto is a solid energy guy who knows where to stand and what to do, even if he is best when allowed to run forward (as we saw against Napoli when he came off the bench in a more box-to-box capacity) he can be a solid pivot.
Gundogan is lethal when unleashed further forward, and we saw repeated instances of him playing absurd passes against Las Palmas and in an ideal world Barcelona would start him as the most advanced midfielder, but alas he has to play deeper to help the team out during this injury crisis. He’s still great in a deep role, but you want him between the lines where there are precious better midfielders in the world.
Fermin is technically deficient, you can see this when he plays. If he isn’t shooting the ball his technical level just isn’t good enough in tight spaces. However, like Sergi Roberto before him, he is tactically exemplary and mentally resiliant. He’s the ideal squaddie and his work-rate makes him a viable option to lead the press for an hour before he exhausts his lung capacity.
Then Xavi has to make a change. And against Las Palmas it was the match-winning one, with João Felix coming on for Fermin to play on the left and Raphinha going through the middle. And of course the goal came as João Felix came off the left to pass to Raphinha running through the middle.
Logically, the Brazilian shouldn’t be so effective as a 10, but he has been on multiple occasions this season. And of course João Felix’s temperamental genius makes him well-suited to coming off the bench with a limited window in which to focus his skill.
“There is no need to talk about João Félix as a starter or not, he is important, he makes the difference in many matches, today he does it from the bench. I am very happy with João Félix, today he could have started.” — Xavi
Against PSG, at least in the first-leg, what we’re likely to see is a midfield of Christensen at the base next to Gundogan with Fermin as the most advanced guy. Then around the hour Fermin will go off (and Christensen too probably, the Dane rarely plays 90 minutes) with Frenkie de Jong and Sergi Roberto coming on to play double pivot together. This will push Gundogan further forward and allow him to influence play in the key danger zones.
By the time of the second-leg, and certainly for the Clásico, Frenkie may even be starting which means Gundogan can start higher and live the whole game between the lines, which would be most beneficial for Barcelona given Gundogan has created more chances than anyone else in La Liga this season.
Then Xavi has Fermin and Roberto as late energy guys if he needs them (you can see the Roberto-for-Christensen change between 60 and 70 minutes coming already) and also Pedri as an option if the team needs his brand of creative magic.
Things are finally coming together for Xavi as the season enters crunch-time. Now he just has to hope that his players can deliver on the pitch. Three wins (or two wins and a draw or small defeat in one leg against PSG) and Barcelona’s chances of glory this season will absolutely rocket up.