A new Barça assaults Europe

Less than half an hour it took Barcelona to kill Ferencvaros with a lineup of applicants who ran like fallow deer, they pushed like wolves and they enjoyed playing soccer like a youth team. At 28 minutes into the game, Koeman's team was already winning by 0-3 to end up liquidating a game that leaves the first place of the group within reach.

Beyond any tactical, technical or managerial considerations, Koeman must be given an undeniable merit: he has managed to get Barça to go through Europe intimidating again three and a half months after he was trampled in Lisbon by Bayern. Barça, even before that fateful night, was a team that traveled the continent with two speeds: the handbrake against accessible rivals and the seized reverse gear against the important ones. Things have changed from top to bottom. Barça runs like the most, fights like a newcomer to the elite and with games like the one played in Budapest, they repair their wounded pride and take Europe again.

All this is being done by Koeman managing the squad admirably. The Barcelona team appeared again in the Champions League without Messi, but neither did Ter Stegen or Coutinho. The situation in the table invited experimentation, but it could be said that the result surprised the company itself.

The departure of the Blaugrana team was a storm that erased the Hungarian team in a first part of harassment and demolition starring a Barcelona more metallurgical than symphonic. A scene in which Martin Braithwaite, a former battering ram, found himself like a fish in water.

Barcelona has been looking for a center forward for a long time that emulates what Larsson did in his day, but Koeman has found in the Danish an imitation of a striker from before, more Elkjaer Larsen than the Swede. A guy who spreads more than he expects, who looks for more balls than he controls and who is aware that either he plays every minute at 200 percent or in the next game he will not have the chance to play.

At his side, undeniable talents lined up that followed in his wake, starting with a Dembélé who, after being under surveillance for the last two games, returned to the field of play in a surprising version in which he incorporated a pause that led to the first Barça goal when the Frenchman enabled Alba to cross into the area where Griezmann scored the first goal with a delicious technical gesture as he finished off with a spur.

Despite the delicacy of both the Blaugrana, Barça continued to bet on applying an intensity that tortured the local team, which did not run like Barça or have a way of stopping the accelerations of a Dembélé who became the master of the game. The Frenchman assisted Braithwaite to score 0-2 at 20 minutes and in fair correspondence, the Danish gave the Frenchman the penalty they gave him so that Ousmane finished the game after half an hour.

But the big news came thereafter. Far from relaxing and managing efforts, Koeman's team continued to be a pylon hammer that struck again and again on the Hungarian goal with a Dembélé in a state of grace that gave the sensation of enjoying like never before on the field leading a Barça that returns to want to be respected.