• Statistics.The match, live

It was the minute 92 of the game when Gerard Piqué , who had run like a demon to catch the goal of Barcelona's triumph, ended up collapsed on the grass of the Reale Arena . Diego Llorente , in full dispute with the Barcelona player, had grabbed him by the shirt and the referee Javier Alberola Rojas considered that there was nothing to point out. If anything, take out the door. Barca's outrage with the referee -or with that indecipherable entity called VAR-, beyond the concrete action, responded to what happened just at the beginning, when it was Busquets who stretched Llorente himself in an action that did end in penalty . In times when there is no better opium than that of controversy and turbulence, a few sports days, other politics, the outcome was most appropriate to the dispute of the next classic. In the inkwell they will rest, however, other types of questions. Like the difficulties in the governance of the Valverde team, the low incidence in the game of the midfielders, the insistence that Arturo Vidal exerts Mr. Lobo in the agony or the sudden vulnerability of Ter Stegen in the side centers.

Martin Odegaard had been dancing for a while on the field with the ball sewn to the feet when the Barcelona hit and the trident - with all that it implied - showed the rawness of his plan. Llorente, who had been engaging with Luis Suarez, measured the output poorly. The Uruguayan, old dog, caught the ball behind the center to launch Griezmann's career. And the French only had to emulate the goal seen a week ago against Mallorca. It combined speed and precision. Genius and art. He pulled out the cue before the goalkeeper's exit and the leather flew gently until he got tangled up where he was supposed to.

A blow, some tranquility and Barcelona could prepare to deny everything that had happened in the first half hour. That section in which the Royal Society, one of the most colorful, but also most innocent, teams in the championship, cut off all creative activity in Barcelona to enjoy the beauty after the back of a Busquets that received orders to leave again and again to the pressure. Without repairing his coach, nobody would cover the sinkhole. Guevara and Merino saw him, always ready to connect from the same division with the Swedish Isak, substitute this time for Willian José .

Although the one who best interpreted what was happening there was Odegaard, capable of occupying unattended spaces and intimidating every time he moved straight ahead towards the goal. If it had not been for Piqué, totemic this time in the correction to the duels lost by his teammates, the Catalans would have paid even more expensive that poor sunrise.

Nothing prevented, however, that the Royal Society advanced on the scoreboard. Busquets grabbed Llorente with little grace at the exit of a corner. He did it with the referee as a privileged spectator and without too much dissimulation. Nothing to object to the penalty, if it were not because there is no corner in which those same scenes are not repeated without punishment in between. Oyarzabal , responsible for the shot from eleven meters, left Ter Stegen sitting while staring at a right that was not such.

Perhaps Barcelona believed that the bewilderment would end the goal of the momentary draw. And he reaffirmed the sensation once the second act began, when he was suddenly at an advantage after another vertiginous episode. This time, thanks to Sergio Busquets knew he opened the advanced defense of Real and Messi , with the sky open, offered the goal to Luis Suarez. He didn't even need the battering to finish off with cleanliness because the goal was already done.

But the Valverde team failed to seize its moment. Griezmann did not focus well on the shot against a Remiro who only had to maintain the position. Shortly after, Piqué saw the glory taken from him on the same goal line. And the Sheriff's men, grown before the pardon, once again believed in Odegaard. In which a new life was possible. And in that Barcelona, ​​again vulnerable, could well offer a new slit.

And it appeared in the most unexpected place. Yes, in the mitt of Ter Stegen. The German responded to a Monreal center with a bad swipe towards the center. Isak had nothing more to embocar.

Ernesto Valverde no longer knew how to remedy it. He sat down Busquets and gave Aleñá a rope, a footballer from whom the club plans to part with the winter market. He offered rest to Jordi Alba for Semedo to stretch his legs. And Arturo Vidal and his agonizing football, of course, appeared as the last solution. Nothing was going to change. Piqué, with the shirt made some foxes, stifled the scream.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Sergio Busquets
  • Real society
  • Arturo vidal
  • Luis Suarez
  • Majorca
  • Jordi Alba
  • Gerard Piqué
  • Ernesto Valverde
  • sports
  • soccer
  • FC Barcelona