No one is unscathed from anguish.

Not even the footballers, locked in a perverse system in which success must be the routine, never the anomaly.

Atlético de Simeone began to lose points when they were made to believe that losing this League would be little less than a disgrace.

While Barcelona, ​​which on Sunday night was considered the champion when three pages ago it was just an evicted team, it also showed that its main enemy will not be football, but anxiety.

He beat a heroic Valladolid who only won when the referee condemned him to play with one man less, and after a goal in the 90th minute from

Dembélé

after intervention by the reserves

Araujo

and

Trincao

.

Soccer excites because it is indecipherable.

The Catalans are one point behind Atlético, the reeling leader of the League.

Anxiety can also be suffered by referees.

Like Jaime Latre, who had a terrible night.

Not so much for unleashing the locals due to their bad positioning or for not signaling a penalty by

Jordi Alba

, but for expelling

Óscar Plano

for tripping Dembélé ten minutes from the end.

A yellow one was enough.

Sergio González's frustration could not be May.

He is a fantastic coach.

It can only be someone who has spent so many years managing misery better than anyone.

He had arrived at the Camp Nou with 12 casualties, including Covid patients, injured and sanctions.

Without complaints or self-conscious speeches, he restructured the team as best he could, martyred

Koeman

on the board with a Siamese system, and put Barcelona in serious trouble that had not lost against Valladolid since 1997. That day, by the way,

Eusebio

, the Another Wembley hero, he proved that he also threw fouls like angels.

Koeman had not focused the night well, insisting for the fourth consecutive game with the same starting eleven.

The team that had been working like a charm for him, true, but that needed a twist.

Either because

De Jong

and

Messi

were warned in the week of the classic in Valdebebas - the Argentine, shy, did not hide his fear of being reprimanded -, either because keeping three centrals against Valladolid could not make too much sense, or because Dembélé , as a reference ram against teams that are entrenched in their area, it does not work.

Dembélé needs spaces to run, not tiles to trip over.

Koeman corrected himself after the break.

First with the scheme, from 3-4-2-1 to 4-3-3, and then to 4-4-2.

And then with mass changes.

There was no other left after what he saw in the first act.

Unable to open the field to the lanes of Dest and Jordi Alba and trapped in the interior corridors without

Pedri being

able to link his game with Messi and

Griezmann

this time

, Valladolid found facilities every time they caught a transition.

The one who came closest to opening the scoring was

Kenan Kodro

, who perhaps came to mind some of the goals scored by his father,

Meho

, at the Camp Nou.

Kenan's header after beating Mingueza, however, crashed into the crossbar.

But the threat from Valladolid did not end there.

It was

Roque Mesa

, a midfielder, another of those who most enjoyed the facilities offered by the Catalans.

He missed twice in the shot, but there was his stamp, running so wide 30 meters down the throat of the field while the centrals opened in his path.

It took Barcelona his life to find some peace.

Sometimes nervous about the referee's poor positioning, other times restless about the growth of goalkeeper Masip, decisive with two iron hands before shots from Pedri, with the stick as the final point, and Dembélé, whom Griezmann could not complement.

But Valladolid, far from wrinkling, continued sniffing the blood.

Olaza tightened the rope even more.

And the Catalans looked at the sky, and sighed, when the ball touched Jordi Alba's hand inside the area.

Óscar Plano led the protests, but the judges had to interpret that the lane's gesture was not unnatural.

What Plano perhaps did not expect is that the referee would reward him with an expulsion.

The same that opened the skies to an anguished Barcelona, ​​but that celebrated the redeeming goal with the spirit of a champion.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • FC Barcelona

  • Ousmane Dembélé

  • Pedri

LaLiga Santander 2020 - 2021 Barça stalks Atlético with a period win in Anoeta

LaLiga Santander 2020 - 2021 First crisis in Laporta's team

LaLigaBarcelona once again believes in La Liga

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