Barcelona only survives

's faith

is not Barcelona's faith.

The courage of the boy from Los Palacios contrasts with the anemia of a Barcelona that only survives.

A disoriented team, discouraged and unable to follow the creed of

.

At Anoeta, Barça lost the ball, but won the game thanks to a lousy night by Real Sociedad's strikers.

The win puts the azulgrana in second place and delays, at least a week, the alirón of Real Madrid.

Football is full of contradictions.

The other night, an hour after Barcelona lost badly to Cádiz,

appeared sprawled out in a chair and plugged into his Twitch channel to defend his business with the Federation bigwig.

Piqué, back from everything, said that he did not want more money.

That he had so much that he could spend the rest of his life lying on a couch.

He drew a particular line between those who are successful -that is, money- and those who are not, to later ensure that he would play soccer for a couple more years.

And in those it is.

Because, even lame, he continues to be Barça's best defender.

The team that was dismembered by Eintracht and stripped naked by Cádiz had in common the absence of Piqué, a footballer who is used to hiding the defects and maximizing the virtues of his rearguard teammates.

Logic would have imposed his substitution when, half an hour into the match against Real Sociedad, the center-back began to shake hands with his sore adductor.

But neither he wanted to leave, nor Xavi wanted to expose himself to the sinkhole.

Meanwhile, the Anoeta stands whistled viciously at the azulgrana, to whom that music always sounded like elevator music.

He didn't even flinch when they started throwing objects at him.

He put his hands on his hips and went about his business.

He lasted 82 minutes on the field.

It couldn't be an easy game for Barcelona, ​​pushed to the limit for long stretches by the suffocating pressure of

's costaleros .

That the azulgrana goal came early allowed, yes, some relief to the visitors in the first act.

The answer had to be found in Gavi's determination to arrive while his rivals waited.

The ball had just been fired after a shot at the post by

in the only worthwhile action of his.

And the youth squad, faced with the passivity of the defenders, managed to give continuity to the play linking up with

.

This, after a caress in parallel, put the ball on the head of

, who only had to move his hair a little to take the goal.

Isak and Sorloth's mistakes

Although

-improved in the left-footed profile-, Ferran and Aubameyang hovered around the second goal before the break thanks to attacks as vertical as sporadic, Barcelona's game warned of a complicated development.

Because Real Sociedad, despite the uncoordination of its rhombus on the axis, had the ball.

Because he won the duels.

Because he sniffed out a tie that his own strikers denied.

There was more to see how

placed the right loot after

left him alone in front of

, who had stayed halfway out.

The Swedish attacker bent his foot and the ball, in an ugly grimace, went several meters beyond the goal.

Real insisted in a furious start to the second half.

It lasted 20 minutes because the problems were already known.

This time he had to punish Sorloth, unable both to focus under the sticks and to avoid the presence of Ter Stegen.

Meanwhile,

had to take the field after

injured his right knee.

, for his part, relieved

, who could not help much in his role as midfielder.

Nothing had to be built.

The frustration of Real Sociedad was such that not even the entry of the suspicious

, exultant this time in the urgency, nor the ten minutes of added time granted by the referee turned the game around.

Barça looked at the grass, where they found so many problems;

to heaven, where he sought some divine help;

and he was thankful to have come out alive.

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• Barcelona

• Real society

• Ter Stegen

• Xavi Hernandez