Dembélé has no explanation

• 4-0 at the Camp Nou Narrative and statistics

Dembélé

has no explanation.

His football is not born of sanity, but of the absurd.

When he doesn't have the ball, he walks with his shoulders slumped and his arms akimbo.

He feels naked.

But when he finally gets the ball, he does his best to wreak havoc.

On bad days, there can be no player who is more exposed to embarrassment than him.

But when irrationality suddenly takes on meaning, his shameless creation becomes a work of art.

The contradiction in which he lives is also ours.

The Dembélé thing is nonsense.

Four episodes starring the winger were enough to bring down a disappointing Athletic team who, as happened to Villarreal last Thursday, failed to recover from a devastating Barça storm (between the 12th and 22nd minute they conceded three goals).

Already in the second half,

, increasingly animated, closed the night after the Frenchman's third assist.

Dembélé began his show with a shot with his left foot that Unai Simón took out as best he could.

was offside, but the referee considered that it did not influence the goalkeeper's vision at all.

The play was picked up by

, who changed his role to put the ball back in the area.

And there was Dembélé, who jumped and, despite closing his eyes, managed a chopped header that left Athletic speechless.

Dembélé must not have felt entirely satisfied with what he had just done, so he returned to the charge along its shore in the face of Yuri's suffering, unable to decipher his rival.

did understand it

, a footballer with enough lives to continue being profitable.

After noticing the Frenchman the advance of his teammate, he returned the ball to him so that he charged.

Unai

was betrayed by the rebound in

.

The Lewandowski twist

The outburst continued with the third goal, the most beautiful of all.

Dembélé scored another assist, but nothing would have happened had it not been Lewandowski who was waiting at the penalty spot.

The striker loves to spin like a top and take on defenders who tend to fall on their asses.

A back control with his right foot, and a hit with his left, served for Lewandowski to add his twelfth goal in the championship.

They are already 17 in all competitions.

Ernesto Valverde lost his gaze.

The Camp Nou did not receive him in any way.

He pretended he didn't know him.

Neither an institutional memory, nor a song, nor a banner.

Any.

Perhaps no one knew how to react to an uncomfortable coach for those who understand football as a luxurious puppet theater, not as a job compatible with an earthly life.

Normality is not only frowned upon, but is often repudiated.

Valverde will always be remembered for two of the hardest collapses in the history of a Barcelona that at that time tried to hide its decline (Rome and Liverpool), but not for the Cup and the two Leagues won.

Because nothing attracts more than misery.

And Valverde, who knows how bloody football can be at a Camp Nou where bad decisions condemn you, prioritized the leg over raw talent.

and

, probably the most imaginative players of his,

from the starting line-up to load up his team with much less anarchic players.

That is why

and

appeared -injured at the height of Barça's heyday and replaced by

, who also ended up broken-.

Nothing worked for Valverde.

Athletic only hovered around

in the twilight, when

and

saved the goal on the line.

Sergi Roberto's injury

That the battle had to be fought in the center of the field was also understood by

, who for the first time this season made

,

, Gavi and

play together to recover the square, with the Sevillian on the right and the Canarian on the right. left.

Although Gavi barely reached half an hour after Dani García took him ahead.

entered

, insisting on his indelicacy.

The medical part was completed by Sergi Roberto, who ended up with his shoulder made of foxes.

On the other shore,

ran and played great.

It worried that

only had half an hour.

The striker, who is playing for the World Cup and who came from two good performances, still does not have that continuity that is tormenting him so much.

He himself feels compelled to continue claiming.

His is not an easy role.

The one who continues with his resuscitation process is Ferran Torres, to whom everything works out.

Confidence is everything.

And Barcelona has met her again.

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• FC Barcelona

• Athletic Bilbao

• Ousmane Dembele

• Xavi Hernandez