A Barça against the elements

Neither the rain, nor the wind, nor Balaídos nor even the numerical inferiority due to the expulsion of Lenglet at the end of the first half stopped a Barça that prevailed over all the adversities that arose based on pride to win by 0-3 a match of those that put any group to the test. If you add the magic of Ansu and Messi to work and seriousness, there is no obstacle that is too high.

Ronald Koeman does not cheat. He goes with his ideas to the end. The Dutchman is very clear about who his starters are and he repeated the team in Balaídos, a stadium where Barça has been suffering for a long time. This time, it was no different, because Del Cerro Grande appeared to raise the bar for the Blaugrana team that had advanced in another Ansu Fati delight, who has decided that there is no door that can resist him.

The game was one on an equal footing and another after the referee sent Lenglet off for two yellow cards that the Barça fans deemed excessively rigorous. The Catalans were hot since in the 35th minute the referee quickly took the red out to expel Piqué for knocking down Denis while the assistant told him from the band that the Galician had started offside. He quickly rectified the referee, but left the Barça players an air of suspicion that with the second yellow for Lenglet put the game raw.

Until that moment, Barcelona had shown themselves to be a disciplined, dynamic team that felt more comfortable without the ball than with it. The attitude of Koeman's men to recover the ball was commendable. On the other hand, at the time of going out with the ball or finishing the plays, the panorama darkened.

Only Ansu Fati, a player gifted with an unusual resolution capacity, illuminated the Blaugrana team. His goal at 11 minutes into the game was a new display of talent at the end of a play with a resource, the kick with the outside, which Romario himself would have signed.

But Barça failed to take advantage of that advantage and Celta was deployed in the Blaugrana field. Without creating clear chances, but forcing a sense of lack of control that climaxed with the expulsion of Lenglet before the break.

In the resumption, with Araújo, who went out to the field for a once again inconsequential Griezmann, as a couple with Piqué, Barça seemed to have the usual thing at Balaídos: suffer.

But it was then, in inferiority, in the rain and with a wind that added difficulty to each play when the Barcelona players got their best version. Barça clenched their teeth. At six minutes, Baeza holed in his goal a Messi center that Ansu was waiting to finish after a huge start from the Argentine.

Shortly after, Messi himself scored again, but his goal was canceled by an offside of those centimeters. Barça tried not to lose its place in the field, but the inferiority began to weigh. Baeza, Hampered by Sergi Roberto, he sent a ball to the crossbar after a bad rebound from Neto, which led Koeman to oxygenate the team by entering Trincao and Pedri while Òscar put all the meat on the grill. But this time Barça knew how to suffer and defend a victory against the elements that Sergi Roberto culminated by scoring third in discount.