Barcelona took a major disappointment at the most tricky moment of the season. The afternoon in which he should have finally reached the first place in the League ended with the Barça footballers scattered and with a gesture of not understanding anything. His biggest mistake was not appreciating the danger of Granada, which was enough to finish twice between the three sticks to win the game. But also not to notice the own insufficiency, already intuited in the last duels against Getafe or Villarreal.
Ronald Koeman
, deranged and expelled, was obsessed with surviving with the scheme of the three centrals. It did not correct the null fluency. He rejected the possibility of picking up the pace. And when he found himself with the water around his neck, it was too late. Barça, equaled on points with Real Madrid but with him
Average
lost, already two from Atlético, no longer depends on himself to win the League.
It seemed like it was written.
Barcelona, still with an advantage on the scoreboard, was moving the ball from one side to the other, only thinking of discounting minutes and without any intention of looking for another goal.
Until facing the abyss.
Granada had already poisoned the game, but no Barça player seemed to want to realize what was happening around them.
The three center-backs were still putting down roots in the steppe, the lanes had no impact whatsoever, and the attackers, instead of rebelling at the slowness of the frames, waited who knows what.
Barça believed that with some seriousness and with Messi's goal caught in the first act, they would have enough to live in peace. A serious mistake attending to the rival in question, that Granada of
Diego Martínez
that never got smaller. Why would he do it at the Camp Nou if this season he already kept his chin up at Old Trafford or San Paolo? What difference does it make that the Nasrid team arrived with nine casualties to face a Barcelona that seemed packed towards the double. In football, nobody wins in the previews. Neither in the stories.
Koeman must have thought that by resting three of his pieces (
Serginho Dest
,
Lenglet
and
Pedri
) he could refresh his team. But Barcelona, with
Ilaix Moriba
in an eleven that also included
Sergi Roberto
, very discreet, the always suspicious
Umtiti
, he was saturated. Of legs. Upside down. It must not be easy to be one step away from a completely absurd comeback in the standings - in December it was 12 points behind Atlético - and face a Granada that only dedicates itself to competing. And that he does it like few others.
Barcelona had dawned with a long possession of one minute and 42 seconds. But completely irrelevant. As if that were just the preamble to what was to come next. Because Granada would never lose their composure in defense, well fixed their double line of five and four men. Because it is one of those teams that knows its limitations so much that it only has to express its virtues. Not even seeing themselves at a disadvantage too early were those of Diego Martínez fazed.
The Catalans, on the other hand, believed they had reached the shore with hardly disheveled.
Griezmann
turned his body with the grace of
Nureyev
, entangled
Víctor Díaz
with the turn
, and enabled Messi in the area.
The Argentine shot accurately to take the net and confirm his 26th goal in the League.
But the afternoon, with the sky on the verge of collapsing, did not offer any reason for recreation to Barcelona.
Only the periscope of
Sergio Busquets,
always with his sights set on Messi, encouraged the locals.
Goalkeeper
Aaron
pulled out
La Pulga's
second goal with his fingernail
, and Barcelona, perhaps without knowing it and with the entire second half ahead, got into a tremendous mess.
Luis Suárez
sent
Machís
flying
, and the Barcelona defense completely disintegrated.
Mingueza's
deficient intervention may remain in
memory
, again pointed out by his coach. Although it would not be necessary to overlook how Umtiti had dismembered the line running towards nothing. Machís tied the game, and Barcelona sank.
Koeman, again on his nerves, was expelled and ended up directing his team through voice notes to his assistant's mobile phone. The new times. It was of little use because no one noticed
Jorge Molina
, one of those strikers who would be despised in a Super League and who at 39 respects the job like few others. He does not celebrate his successes with the grace of Griezmann, but he knows many of the secrets that allow a footballer to survive on any field. In any division.
With the Barcelona footballers already upset and Koeman finally ordering to change the scheme so that
Dembélé
and
Pedri would
look for a gap,
Adrián Marín
threw a center without opposition.
Jorge Molina did not have it either to finish off Granada's winning goal.
Piqué
passed by.
Umtiti was left half.
And the Granada striker took the shovel to return Barcelona to a hole from which he believed he had emerged.
And as an epitaph threat at the Camp Nou,
Mary Shelley
in her Frankenstein: "To examine the origins of life we must first know death."
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