• Narration: So we live the game
  • Classification Group F

«What interested me about the character was not his life, but his death», insisted García Márquez, without noticing another concept so common in football, that of the resurrection. Being this sport so given to extremes and torment, both in its practice and in its hasty analysis, deaths are as celebrated as kicks to the tombstone. The tomb opens and closes with such ease that no one is surprised that in darkened teams from a single pantocrator one gets used to abandoning catatonia. Messi, like Dorian Gray, just sees his portrait grow old. He already piles up 700 games and his game continues to be jovial and devastating. He collapsed from a blow (a goal, an assist to Luis Suarez and another to Griezmann) to a Borussia Dortmund that had nothing to do with the cyclone seen in the Signal Iduna Park. And the Barcelona of Valverde, who had been wandering in recent weeks, impulsive at the beginning, fearful at the end, could deny his decline for a while and obtain the qualification for the eighths of the Champions League as first group. Barça will be what Messi wants. [Narration and statistics: 3-1]

When a man approaches the abyss he usually has two options. Or it drops or rebels. Valverde, who had been proclaiming the virtues of resultism from the media pulpit for days, should not see it so clearly when he decided to get his team back in hand. Once he showed in Leganés that that of the four strikers was nothing more than a tactical abomination, the Barcelona coach understood that in order to survive there might be no other than to return to the origins. Although for this he had to rescue Rakitic from oblivion, one of his former fetish footballers (in the whole season he had only been a starter in the defeat of Granada), or abandon the great bet of the club of the last market on the bench, Antoine Griezmann . Thus, Arthur prolonged the uncertainty that surrounds him before each discard, and Dembélé was presented with another occasion to deny that his signing for Barcelona has not been one of the most ruinous in the history of the club. He did not get it.

The feet of Rakitic had been so rusty that it was difficult for the Croatian to believe that he was again a necessary footballer for Barcelona. Not even a minute had elapsed when Rakitic had to control and yield to a partner. He did the first part of the job, but not the second. Brandt, blonde hair in the wind, the heavens opened to the backlash. It was Schulz, a reconverted side, who should crown the action. He did everything he could. Umtiti saved the first attempt, and the second ended in nothing.

Perhaps there, on that same dawn, the Dortmund de Favre ended, which advances without remedy towards the dismissal after what was seen in the Camp Nou. His initial bet was to fold the lanes (Achraf and Schulz the false ends), to seat Jadon Sancho and Thorgan Hazard, and to place Reus as a center forward foul in the absence of Paco Alcácer's injury. The plan ended in disaster and Barcelona had nothing to thank it for. When Favre regained Sancho, responsible for the German honor goal with which the night was closed, it was already late.

This, of course, helped Messi in constant combustion. The duel started the rosary caracoleando between three rivals and forcing a direct free that ended up hitting Sergio Busquets. He later sought to make a profit from his alliance with Luis Suárez, whose performance in the Camp Nou matches has nothing to do with what he shows when he moves away from his stadium.

Hummels and Akanji, little less than puppets at the hands of Messi, bowed again and again the knee before the advances of the Argentine. After leaving the former Bayern center in Babia, La Pulga managed to introduce the pass, which Suarez only had to continue with the goal shot. The referee knocked him out of the Uruguayan's offside. But the episode was repeated to the despair of the overwhelmed rivals. Messi indicated the way to his comrade, and Luis Suárez returned to embocar, this time by means of a somewhat long control. Nothing mattered When the battering ram of Barcelona decides not to waste time and limits himself to shooting, he is usually implacable.

Nothing seemed to bother Barcelona. The Camp Nou assumed with a routine resignation the nth muscle injury of Ousmane Dembélé. The French forward hurriedly took off his boots and waited while sitting on the grass for someone to accompany him. He tried to hide his frustration with the shirt. But I wouldn't even have done it with a turtleneck.

Griezmann came out in his place and could enjoy a Barcelona that he squeezed in the first act, but that he chose to speculate in the second half to be able to kill the counter in the second. Puro Valverde, who thought it would be the best after Messi had scored the second goal after a grotesque departure from Hummels.

De Jong, who ran for him and his teammates, ended up being insufficient for a Barcelona that did not cut and offered the ball to Dortmund. As if with Griezmann's 3-0 everything was over. The French had finally interpreted the assistance of a Messi who, on the other hand, insisted until the exhaustion that Griezmann was happy.

The Barça speculation exercise, however, allowed a heartbreaking outcome. Ter Stegen had to save Brandt a goal. Another Sancho fit and denied another to the London striker. The ball crashed into the wood.

Valverde keeps browsing. But every time he looks more like Captain Ahab.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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