Shark Attack! Five things to think about as Barcelona batter Betis
Real Betis 2-4 Barcelona - La Liga
Ferran Torres bagged a hat-trick as Barcelona blew Real Betis away 4-2 at the Benito Villamarin to secure a much-needed victory.
Much as the Spanish Super Cup final was a unique game for Barcelona this season in that they just completely lost the plot and got whomped, this was a unique game for Barcelona this season in that they delivered a competent and exciting performance from start to finish and won the game!
It was really flipping good!
Barcelona’s problems with profligacy are a well known and oft lamented fact of footballing lore, but today we saw none of that as Xavi’s men scored 4 goals in a game for the first time since they beat Antwerp in September.
According to Sofascore, Barcelona finished the game with an xG of 2.98, which is not only good for a tricky away game but also a number they also overshot with their 4 strikes in Andalucia. Barcelona creating chances is nothing new, Barcelona taking them? It’s very interesting!
Doubly interesting is that none of the goals came from Robert Lewandowski, but more from the pitiful Pole later, first, a glance at the hero of the day… Isco!
In a delightful display of Sociological Madridismo, Isco was voted MVP of the game. Now, on the face of it, his brace and generally great second-half, despite being in a losing effort, could merit the award.
But Barcelona had multiple players in their side who outdid the man who once had a dog named Messi. Three of their players in particular outshone Isco, most obviously the hat-trick hero Ferran Torres.
Shark Attack: Ferran Torres finds his feet
Yeah, that’s right, Ferran Torres bagged a hat-trick. The first of his Barcelona career (and the first time he’s scored more than once in single La Liga game since March 2022 against Osasuna). It was an incredible show of force from the man known as The Shark, coming just days after his manager Xavi praised him openly.
“Ferran embodies what a mentally strong footballer is. You need that to play at Barça. Sometimes they make you feel small or feel like you don’t have much value. Ferran has had to be very strong mentally.” — Xavi
Praising a striker’s mental strength because he scored a goal against fourth tier opposition in the Copa del Rey may have seemed like a strange move, but it was another example of Xavi’s exceptional man management.
Ferran is a striker who thrives with good vibes. And after his equaliser against Unionistas de Salamanca on Thursday night, Xavi made sure his no. 7 felt all of those good vibes and came into this tricky trip away to Betis flying.
After starting the season impressively as a super-sub, where he had 5 goals in his first 8 games of the season coming off the bench, things dried up for Ferran. He scored just once in his next 16 appearances and looked to have lost his starting spot to Joao Felix.
But after the Portuguese hit his own dry spell, Xavi gave Ferran another run as a starter. He scored a big equaliser against Las Palmas before the Supercopa excursion, and while he was poor in Saudia Arabia he came back in fine form.
His goal against Unionistas pulled Barcelona level, and then last night he tore Betis to shreds from his wide left role.
While his first strike was just a tap-in after peeling in from the left flank to give Barcelona the lead, his next two strikes were sublime. His second an instinctive snapshot with his left-foot, guiding a loose ball into the back of the net between a bunch of Betis bodies. His third was similar to the goal against Unionistas: running behind a high-line, keeping his composure 1-v-1 against the goalkeeper to finish. Here he lifted the ball so delicately over the onrushing Rui Silva to put the seal on the win you would never know he had struggled with his finishing.
Inbetween his second and third goals, he provided an intelligent assist for Joao Felix’s staggering strike. Three goals and one assist, the most dominant force in the game.
His movement off the ball made him a constant threat to Betis and an option for Barcelona’s playmakers to find — then his finishing was powerful and placed well. Having someone so willing to shoot makes a big difference to Barcelona’s ability to build and capitalise on pressure. Had he taken a touch before shooting for his second-goal, then he would undoubtedly been closed down and the chance taken from him.
Instead, he smashed it home first-time. With his weak foot. That’s the kind of instinctive, world-class finishing Barcelona have been missing for much of the season. A hat-trick and an assist to deliver a massive win. Decisive. And more than worthy of the “Shark” nickname he has picked up for himself this season. Sharp, quick movement and smart decisive use of the ball in the final third. Mental strength so potent the manager has repeatedly pointed it out.
The game against Betis was his 100th for the Blaugrana. He’s played brilliantly and been decisive before, against Real Madrid and Atleti even, but this performance felt different as he put the team on his back. After a century of appearances, has Ferran Torres finally truly arrived as a Barcelona player?
El Prodigi: Lamine Yamal shines again
If we’re being nitpicky, Ferran is not much of a dribbler, but as 97 Passes previously pointed out: as long as the other winger does like to carry the ball, then the Blaugrana will have a nice balance to their attack. A lot of times in 2023/24 this hasn’t been the case, but yesterday? Well, Barcelona had Ferran running and gunning on one flank, and a dribbling wizard on the other one.
Lamine Yamal is just 16 years-old. This gets said a lot because holy freakin’ hell this kid does not play like a 16 year-old. The clarity and vision he displays against players a decade or more his senior is beyond belief.
To get an idea of just how young Lamine Yamal is, Manchester City’s recent goalscoring hero Oscar Bobb - a youngster having his break-out season for Pep Guardiola’s men - is 20. Four years older than Lamine Yamal.
To make it even clearer: Jude Bellingham, who is already gilded with praise like a rennaissance fresco, is also four years older than Lamine Yamal - and Barcelona’s young winger will not be the same as as Bellingham is now until 2028.
What’s more, these aren’t garbage minutes in a Champions League dead-rubber, this isn’t a pre-season tour, these are competitive matches in La Liga and European qualifiers for Spain and this child is flying through them.
Xavi has played him sparingly, which is sensible given how being overused has backfired so immensely with their previous prodigies. He’s featured regularly, but mostly off the bench (today was the first time he started a match in La Liga since November) as Xavi has sought to protect him.
He started against Betis, however, and was in dazzling form from start to finish. He completed 5/7 dribbles, hit the woodwork twice, created two big chances with one official assist and was pure liquid to watch.
Barcelona’s second goal comes because Lamine Yamal takes his ball and drives down the outside of his defender. A massively left-footed player, he had developed an Arjen Robben-esque ability to always cut infield and do his damage there. But of course that can be predictable, so now he’s developed this change-up. At 16.
Anyway, Lamine Yamal blows by Abner Vinicius and then whips a cross in with his right. It pings off the post, falls to Ferran Torres and he slots home for 0-2.
Then Barcelona’s final goal was a masterwork from young Lamine Yamal. Breaking from a corner, Ferran Torres pinged the ball over to him on the right. Lamine Yamal allowed the forward to start his run before timing his pass, a frankly Messi-esque pass if you’ll excuse the vulgar and obvious comparison to the greatest player of all-time, straight through the defence into Ferran’s path for him to complete his hat-trick.
That wasn’t the first time the teenager (just 16 remember!) split the atom like that either. He played two or three sensational passes in behind Betis, including one for Vitor Roque that, had the Brazilian been in rhythm, would probably have been another assist.
Lamine Yamal is a marvel. Xavi would love to start him every game, but he must be careful not to burn the youngster out, because with good management and good luck with injuries, Lamine Yamal could become one of the very best players in the world.
Lamine Yamal is used to being the only 16 year-old sensation on the pitch for Barcelona. And sure enough, having one wonderkid on the field is enough of an impressive feat, but Barcelona are built different and on Sunday night, they had two.
Pau Cubarsi: The Boy Wonder of the back-line
After a good showing off the bench in the Copa del Rey, where he came on to cover for Andreas Christensen, and with the Dane unable to play and Inigo Martinez still injured, 16 year-old Pau Cubarsi got handed his first start for Barcelona in a devilishly tough away day at Betis.
And he handled it like a walk in the park.
If he didn’t have the face of a child, you’d never know this was a teenage debutant. He was so ridiculously serene in possession and assured in his defensive actions.
Well, after the first five minutes where he slipped and let Betis in for a chance. But hey he’s just a child what do you want? After that early slip, he was a wall. Whenever Betis tried to go through him, they were rebuffed. One tackle on Luiz Henrique was particularly impressive as he stopped the Brazilian dead in his tracks.
More than his actual defending, however, was his unflappability with the ball. Being a Barcelona defender means passing out from the back under the press. With Iñaki Peña in goal this happens less as the Spaniard is no Marc-André Ter Stegen, but it is still a core tenet of Barcelona’s philosophy and against Betis we saw Pau Cubarsi embody La Masia’s insistence and excellence.
Nothing fazed this kid. Not Betis players in his face, not poor passes from his team-mates. Every time he got it, he moved it on. In increasingly impressive ways, too. Suddenly he was pinging the ball around first-time like a 10-year veteran and one goal, Barcelona’s second, literally only happened because Cubarsi split the lines of the Betis press with a risky but rewarding through-ball to Frenkie de Jong (who then found Jules Kounde, who got it to Lamine Yamal, whose cross fell to Ferran Torres).
As with Lamine Yamal, you can expect Pau Cubarsi to be handled with kid gloves, even against Betis he only lasted 80 minutes before cramp got the better of him and he had to be substituted, but this is an exceptional talent.
“Cubarsi? He's a player who's ready. He doesn't look like he's 16, he's very focused, mature and has a strong personality. I don't think he lost a single ball. I think he will mark an 𝐞𝐫𝐚 here, just like Lamine.” — Xavi
This was the first time since 1984/85, and then it was only because of a strike from professional players, that a team in La Liga has fielded two 16 year-olds on the same pitch. And that’s the only time it will happen too, because Pau Cubarsi turns 17 today.
Happy Birthday Pau!
Robert Lewandowski and João Felix: a mixed bag
While Ferran Torres and Lamine Yamal stole the headlines, Barcelona’s established forwards had a more mixed evening. One the one hand you had Robert Lewandowski, goalscoring god (667 goals in 965 appearances for club and country through his career), wandering around Benito Villamarin looking like a shadow of his former self.
The Polish striker went on a mini-scoring streak since being subbed off against Las Palmas. He never played well in any of the matches, but he did at least score. But against Betis he did neither.
It was painful watching Lewandowski amble about the pitch, wasting Lamine Yamal’s passes or Pedri’s passes or Gundo— you get the point. It was bad. And encouragingly, Xavi realised this and even though the scores were level and he was looking for a winner, just as he did against Las Palmas, he took his star striker off the pitch.
“Lewandowski's change? I think about what the team needs at that moment. We needed our 9 to 'attack' the space, and that's what Roque is best at. Change is what I thought was best to win.” — Xavi
This isn’t the end for Lewandowski, because if nothing else Vitor Roque isn’t ready for a succession of 90 minute appearances so at the very least the Pole is going to get starts to soften up defences for his Brazilian team-mate, but the end is coming soon.
Well, actually, the end could be now because as Lewandowski exited the field last night, João Felix (and Vitor Roque) entered. And the Portuguese phenom, who has been typically inconsistent, showed the genius that courses through his veins is on a level that no one else in Blaugrana is currently able to match.
Perhaps when Pedri is fully fit, there will be a rival to João Felix, but as of now no one can touch him in terms of ability, the only issue is consistency of execution.
Against Betis, we saw the good side as he scored a frankly ridiculous goal to restore Barcelona’s lead. A one-two with Ferran Torres was capped off with a genuinely and utterly ridiculous shot from the edge of the box with the outside of his foot. This was the kind of thing you do in EA Sports FC 24 (aka FIFA 24) where trivela shots are programmed to be overpowered. This is not a real world goal, and yet, here we were, seeing it in the flesh. A flash of genius, true genius, from João Felix.
It may not work against every opponent, but a front line of João Felix, Ferran Torres and Lamine Yamal could be the best Barcelona have to offer right now as Xavi eases Vitor Roque into things.
By the way, the Brazilian didn’t score but the sharpness of his movement made both second-half goals (and thus the win) possible by creating space for the shooter, and his tenacity in the press unsettled Betis’ attempts to get their own equaliser, he’s not yet found his shooting boots, but he’s a real one.
Iñaki Peña: still a problem
You may have noticed the repeat references to Barcelona losing a lead, or needing the second-half goals to win, and here’s what happened: Barcelona went 0-2 up, but in a 10 minute period of dominance, Real Betis scored twice to equalise, before the Blaugrana regained control and won the day.
But how did Betis score twice in such a short space of time? Well, for the most part, Iñaki Peña was the reason why. The Spaniard is simply nowhere near the level required to keep goal for Barcelona.
Perhaps for a smaller club, if he were constantly involved, Iñaki Peña would thrive. But part of being a Barcelona goalie is doing absolutely nothing for vast swathes of the game then suddenly having to do everything, everywhere, all at once.
Iñaki Peña does not thrive in those situations, especially with his hesitance to leave his line to either sweep behind his defence or come for crosses. Real Madrid exploited both weaknesses in the Supercopa, and Betis did the same at the Benito Villamarin.
For Betis’ first goal all they did was send a cross in. A cross Ronald Araujo was ready to head clear. But Iñaki Peña lumbered off his line and leaped to punch it clear, except he hadn’t communicated with the Uruguayan so neither man got a clean contact, the ball bobbled to Isco and the ex-Madridista volleyed home superbly.
Mind you, if Iñaki Peña was actually in his goal he’d have probably saved the snapshot. And the same can be said of the second goal mere minutes later as Betis lofted the ball behind the Barcelona defence where Borja Iglesias’ attempted control prevented Araujo from clearing the ball, allowing it to fall to Isco—
Quick sidebar. Isco was clearly offside when Borja tried to control the ball, and while the striker never actually touched it he was quite clearly trying to and his presence meant Araujo couldn’t just charge through and hoof the thing into the stands. A textbook example of interfering with play, which should have resulted in Isco being ruled offside (just like when João Felix’s goal against Granada was ruled out because Ferran Torres, who didn’t touch the ball but did prevent Granada from clearing it, was offside when the cross came into the box). But it wasn’t. Weird. Anyway…
—and with the ball floating through the air, if Iñaki Peña had stayed in his goal, Isco would have frustratingly had to watch the ball sail into the goalie’s arms. Or if Iñaki Peña had left his line with authority and command he could have high-pointed the ball and cleaned Isco out in the process.
He did neither, and so Isco was left with the third option to delicately loft the ball over the goalkeeper’s head. And given he has genius in his boots, he did just that to level the scores at 2-2. An incredible goal and moment that, had Barcelona not found another level with Xavi’s subs, would have cost the Blaugrana points.
Although that wouldn’t have been odd given the venue. No one had beaten Real Betis at home this season in La Liga. Atlético Madrid were held 0-0, while Girona and Real Madrid were both held to 1-1 draws in consecutive games no less!
Barcelona, however, roused themselves to pick up a big, big win. Another match where they had to rouse themselves late and show the mentality of champions. They have now won 10 points in the last five minutes of matches this season, more than anyone else in the division. They are a relentless force, and if they can start performing in the opening 70 as they do in the last 20, maybe a title charge isn’t out of the question?