Real Valladolid 1- Barcelona 2: Barcelona Huff and Puff to Victory at Jose Zorilla
Watching the Barca-Valladolid match felt less like watching an already relegated side against league leader and more like a plucky underdog digging in and eyeballing a flailing opponent.
This Real Valladolid had conceded 81 goals (81!) in just 33
games before their match with Barca. They are under a cloud of uncertainty.
Their supporters’ groups, the Real Valladolid Federation of Supporters’ Clubs
and the Fondo Norte 1928 group, led a protest against the current club owner,
football icon, and your favorite striker’s favorite striker, Ronaldo Nazario over poor management.
What I am getting at with that long digress was that, this was a free hit for Barca. Let me rephrase that – this was supposed to be a free hit for Barca. An already relegated opponent, protests against owners, low confidence - really, the universe had delivered the critical blows for Barca. Now, all the Blaugrana needed to do was finish the job. Not hard, right?
Even with a second string consisting of green shoots like Dani
Rodriguez, the returning-from-injury duo of Ter Stegen and Christensen,
you would expect Barcelona to wipe the floor with the worst team in the league.
Yet, here we are, glad that this was over and didn’t
drag on with too many injuries or hangovers (here’s to hoping Gavi is okay).
Flick rotated heavily at Valladolid, with Pedri and Gavi being
the only frequent starters out there. And it showed in that lukewarm first half
performance that had a lot in a thousand passes but no cuts. Barca moved the
ball well, as you would expect that from them. But their slow, labored, nonchalant
style of play barely laid a glove on the surprisingly well-drilled
Valladolid.
Once again, Valladolid have now conceded 83 goals in La
Liga. With four matches remaining, you expect that number to grow. This is a
team that Barcelona’s fringe players should be pummeling, to show Flick
that they deserve a peek at the high table of the lavishly talented first team.
That didn’t happen.
Ansu Fati, once again, seemed too eager to please, like a puppy at
the orphanage hoping to get adopted. This made him make a lot of poor decisions.
Pau Victor, save for a nice header that was well-saved by Valladolid keeper Andre Ferreira, had a rather quiet
first half. Dani Rodriguez, the debutant who showed flickers of brilliance coupled
with frustrating decision-making and shot-taking, was lively without being
threatening. And Pedri and Gavi dominated the midfield but could not find the missile
in their armory to land the killer blow or lay the platform for the
forwards to do it.
83 goals conceded and still counting!
Then, it happened, the moment you have all been waiting for!
Lamine Yamal
Dani Rodriguez dislocated his shoulder in a seemingly innocuous-looking
tussle and in came Lamine Yamal. This match was supposed to be his moment of
repose, the time for him to sit back, relax and conjure up different magic
spells for the Tuesday’s tussle at the San Siro. He wasn't supposed to even know the height of the grass at the Jose Zorilla.
But alas! No rest for the brilliant it seemed. With Rodriguez
strapped and stepping out, Yamal had to come on and drag Barcelona forward once
again. At that time, Barcelona was down 1-0, having conceded a freak of a goal
from Ivan Sanchez – the ball deflected off Araujo’s stretched foot, sailed
above everyone’s head and seemingly, relished tricking everyone that it
was sailing over the bar, only to duck last minute and sneak in at the far
post. You cheeky little bastard!
I had even looked away as soon as I saw the ball loop over everyone’s
head, confident it was going out for a goal kick. Imagine my shock when I saw
Valladolid players create a celebration huddle when I looked back! What just
happened and when did it happen?
Immediately Lamine came on, though, Barcelona looked threatening.
Ponderous plays in possession were replaced with precision and purpose. Suddenly,
that defensive block of the worst defensive team in La Liga looked the part - desperate tackles, flailing limbs in the penalty box, last minute blocks and
ping pong rebounds all around.
This is what he does, this infant. He destabilized entire
teams, creates panic in a room full of chilled ice, shifts entire galaxies and rips
the fabric of space and time at will.
It was his trademark inswinger of a cross from the right that unzipped Valladolid in the 54th minute. The Ronaldo Nazario-owned outfit was already creaking and squeaking at this point in the game.
Araujo, who had somehow found himself in the center forward position, leapt and hang in the air, in a desperate flight to get even a hair on the ball. Heck, even the wind of his moving head would have been enough to shift the ball goalwards. That ball, swiveling in the air in its own orbit, was begging, groveling like desperate lover, to be touched. Just a single touch and it would have gleefully swung goalwards. But the looping ball was too high for Araujo and the wind in his hair.
Ferreira palmed the ball away. Too bad the away was on Raphinha’s foot (oh yeah, he came on at the start of the second half for the struggling Ansu Fati) and Rapha smashed home his 16th goal in la Liga this season.
From then on, it was a matter of when, not if, Barca would
get that second, maybe a third even.
Monstrous Martin
The second came, midway through the second half. In the 60th minute, Frenkie De Jong shifted the ball wide to Gerrard Martin, whose cut back found Fermin Lopez unmarked just inside the area for a first time left-footed finish. That was a cutback that pulled back memories of Alba-Messi, down to the sweet left-footed finish from Fermin. Sometimes you don't seek out nostalgia. Sometimes nostalgia finds you and forces you to take a sit and re-live that old moment, only now at a different place, in a different time, with a different cast.
Barca 2-1 up!
Gerrard Martin, by the way, had a monstrous match. No, he
wasn’t flawless by any means. I mean, watch him play football and all you see
is a walking flaw, a player who somehow found his way to Barcelona and much to his delighted horror, was taken in.
But for all of his obvious weaknesses, his one major strength, his Mjolnir, are his low crosses across the
penalty box and his cutbacks. He lays the sort of cutbacks from wide that a prolific midfield scorer like Frank
Lampard would have loved to receive constantly on his days.
These crosses, it seemed, were enough to earn him a man of
the match award as Barcelona inched a step closer onto the La Liga crown.
This was a relatively comfortable win, but Valladolid still
created danger, with Raul Moro chomping down Hector Fort on Barcelona’s right
at every opportunity.
Still, though, Barcelona players played as though losing is a concept and not reality, delivering another victory from the jaws of defeat, a sweet victory injected straight into the pumping, adrenaline-stuffed
hearts of every Culer around the world. Every Barca fan, you would imagine, would be hoping,
nay, expecting, such bottomless resilience against the imposing black and blue men
towers at the San Siro on Tuesday.
Onto Inter Milan!
Visca Barca!
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