Despite everything, FC Barcelona won the Metropolitan. Perhaps it can be considered another ‘near miss’, but Xavi’s team cares little about near misses. He needs results because the game still hasn’t arrived. Atlético de Madrid beat him on points, significantly beating him with the ball, but the goal is the only judge and the rojiblanco team spared Barça’s life on too many occasions. After coming out to zero from their last two outings at Civitas, Barça won again at the Metropolitano in the style of Xavi, surviving, because this team still does not resemble what the coach himself and the fans expect. But he is the leader, with more than three over Real Madrid and fourteen over his rival today.
Barça’s dominance was drawn by Pedri, who from his foot, painted the slalom that would break the 0-0. The canary reached the area, where he found Gavi, who turned knowing that Dembélé was behind him with the cane ready. The mosquito was the soul in the Cup and executor of a fantasy play in minute 21. Pedri had moments later the 0-2, but showed that he is more for the feint than for the shot. From that moment, Xavi’s men returned to their most earthly version, that of Espanyol and Intercity, the one that is devoid of all brilliance.
Cholo changed the drawing. He raised Marcos Llorente a few meters and with him, the team went up. With four behind and four in the middle, the rojiblancos woke up, launched to press and discovered that Barça have more doubts than they thought after the first half hour. Llorente began to punish Balde by breaking into space, Griezmann increased his touches and from quick attacks and set pieces, Atlético came close to making it 1-1. Giménez headed it out by centimeters, in another Nahuel Molina sinned in selfishness when he stepped on the area and later Ter Stegen would save Griezmann’s whiplash with a changed hand. Although the German at the corner immediately after, went out to clear without conviction, leaving Reinildo to finish off, who failed to hole it between the three sticks.
Santiago de la Peña
