I thought he was good (not great) up until up until the end, which is when he got lazy with the dribbling and passing. Ironically he scored the winning goal. I love his directness and, like you mentioned, that he’s not scared to take on defenders, and of course that speed. Reminds me of Robben in that regard.
Looked like Dembele mishit the ball there. Seemed to hit that with the outside of his foot/ankle, otherwise probably would've sailed 20 yards over the crossbar. Also, that was no flick-on attempt by Araujo. Goalkeeper also didn't guard his post well. Luck all around. Valladolid will be livid at the ref!
Either way its good to win like this occasionally. Everyone is gonna play a stinker from time-to-time so its a bonus to get 3 points on those occasions. Plus the meltdown in the LPB forum....
They should be the last to open their mouths. At the end of the day we’ve all had our share of favorable and unfavorable calls and react accordingly. Spare me the hypocrisy. Long may their meltdown continue though, pure entertainment. I really, really, realllyyy hope we show up for the clásico and play like we had been prior to this game. Pedri was great today btw. Love that guy man.
Also, it’s getting really tedious reading about how we didn’t deserve to win. Sure, we didn’t play up to par but it was mostly one way traffic with the occasional, albeit dangerous counter attack by Valladolid. While I do agree that the red card was unwarranted, it wasn’t until the 80th minute. So it’s not like they were playing a man short from the start. Also noteworthy are the 50/50 situations that always went the opposition’s way. One of those games. The penno is given sometimes and sometimes it’s not. Alba’s arm isn’t close to his body but it wasn’t hand to ball, he caught it in his stride, who runs with their arms stuck to their body? He didn’t even see the ball hitting is hand, let alone could he have done something about avoiding it. How can you say we didn’t deserve it looking at the stats? I know stats don’t tell the whole story, but that’s why I shed some light on the incidents above and still think we deserved to win.
Exactly. Not a situation where someone was taking a shot or cross and his arm was away from his body. And not to mention it barely changed trajectory of the ball. Absolutely ridiculous to say that was a PK. Even Marca saying it's not a PK.
A reminder that Barcelona are still the only unbeaten team in Europe's top five leagues this year 👀 pic.twitter.com/BzFo1Worx4— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) April 5, 2021
This game made me happier than almost any recent game I've seen. Not because we played well. We were so sloppy... It was a terrible performance but we clutched up and grinded and got a result. Our guys didn't seem fazed and actually kept plugging away and didn't just give up. Dembele in particular got better as the match wore on. The red card was generous but not giving us a few calls earlier including a possible penalty changed the game as well. We deserved this result despite what the meltdown artists in the other forum are saying.
A kind of a win that would be crucial by the end of the season, even if its forgetable performance. I hate it when the team just clicking so well then its time for international break .
And only Man City, Atletico, Inter and Bayern have a better league record. Considering Barca were mid-table fairly deep into the season, that's not bad.
Great Messi Pep talk at halftime, something like this translated by one of the top comments, Video link below: Messi: "Go, go, go. We have to pull this off no matter what it takes" "We need to put in another gear" "We must not let the situation get complicated" Alba, to Dest "when we attack we make sure to open up the field by pushing on the sides" that or something related to the high press, as in "we push to mark their fullbacks". Audio quality is not the best. Messi also said: "lets go, let's increase the rythm without going crazy, move the ball side to side, we will eventually find the space,(otherwise) we aren't going to pull this off. It's going to get complicated. We need a goal, just one goal." Busi also said: "let's go, let's go. 45 minutes left, 45 minutes to give it our all, let's go." VIDEO at the top of the post, pretty cool to see: https://www.reddit.com/r/Barca/comments/ml5jy6/messi_pep_talk_in_the_tunnel_we_have_to_step_it/
And before that, heading into the locker room after the 1st half, Messi saying, "He's looking to give me a card. Oof, terrible." Tiene ganas de darme la tarjeta. Puh, terrible. Messi after the first half"he desperately wants to give me a card"https://t.co/SHxxxJGbLt— Messi Worldwide (@Messi_Worldwide) April 5, 2021