For anyone who believes,
big data
in hand, that football is already a fairly exact science, trying to analyze what happened this season. That he tries to decipher the trajectory of a Barcelona that, in addition to being already a Cup champion, will be the leader of the League for the first time this season if they beat Granada this Thursday. If they were to win, they would advance to Real Madrid, with which they are equaled at 71 points, and Atlético (73). Going from nothing more absolute to (almost) everything - the blot of the Champions by means of - has convinced coach
Ronald Koeman
that his survival instinct is even greater than he himself could expect. That
cholista
"party to party"
that is already repeating like a litany, and those principles increasingly removed from the dogma of the
Cruyffismo
- in Villarreal he ended up defending with four central centers against an inferior rival - make the coach a strange, and blessed, anomaly for the fans.
The results back you up.
You just have to go to the first week of last December.
Barcelona,
Bartomeu
resigned
, did not have a president, but a Manager.
Carles Tusquets
, who was in charge, had just released that he had gotten rid of
Messi
in the summer.
Those were days when footballers assumed that their payroll payments were being deferred and it was taken for granted that the first team would barely fight for a place in the Champions League.
Barça, that day 12, lost at Carranza (2-1) in a bad afternoon for
Lenglet
and
Mingueza
.
Ansu Fati
,
Piqué
and
Sergi Roberto
were trapped in the infirmary.
The team, which at that time still insisted on the double pivot, with
Coutinho
as a false winger and
Braithwaite
as
nine
, he was made a few foxes.
He was ninth in the standings (he was twelfth on matchdays seven, eight and ten), and the leader, an exuberant Atlético who on November 21 had already beaten the Catalans at the Metropolitano (1-0), was ahead of those from Koeman at 12 points.
Barça was then three points from relegation.
What came next borders on the implausible.
57 out of 66 possible points
Since that fall at Carranza, Barcelona has added 57 out of 66 possible points, with 18 victories, three draws and only one defeat, that of the Valdebebas classic. The 3-5-2 became the norm. Messi changed his face. After the bubbling rise of
Dembélé
,
Griezmann
took over. Piqué stabilized the defense.
Ilaix Moriba
became the best reliever. Atlético, meanwhile, have dropped 22 points in their last 23 games. It has been three months since
Simeone's
team has
not threaded more than two wins in a row in the championship. And
Luis Suárez
, called to be the Barça antichrist, has scored three goals in the League in the last two and a half months.
«Barça is not there to win many things.
You have to be realistic, "Koeman said on January 30.
«You don't have to go crazy.
The favorite continues to be the leader, ”the Dutchman continued repeating this Wednesday.
Koeman was reminded of those leagues he won with the Dream Team on the last day.
The two that Real Madrid lost in Tenerife.
The one that escaped Deportivo with the
Djukic
penalty
.
"If we have the same luck, surely we will be champions."
Koeman knows the unheard of.
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