ALAVES 0-BARCELONA 1 | The Barça avoids the disaster

A disastrous Barça avoided the tragedy in Mendizorroza by winning 0-1 with a goal from Frenkie de Jong in the 87th minute that made up another appalling match for Xavi Hernández’s team. Alavés, very fair, made a mistake in a mark and paid dearly for it, but Barça, and its coach, should reflect on what happened in Vitoria. It’s not the day to breastfeed, it’s the day to accept that there are many things to change.

As of today, Barça has two options: look at the table and ensure that “we are not so bad” (the team is fifth, one point from fourth and five from third with one game less) or watch the game and see that there is a lot left To go. The game of the culé team does not invite any optimism.

Xavi Hernández left the meritocracy somewhere unknown and raised the match against Alavés, which was presented as decisive and a pintiparado opportunity to besiege fourth place, between a tribute to the old glories and a new opportunity for those who always disappoint.

Jordi Alba and Frenkie de Jong repeated ownership after their attack on football on Thursday in San Mamés and Dest, a player that Xavi has shown the exit door countless times, recovered a place in the starting eleven.

Contrary to what the Blaugrana coach expected and confirming what the rest of humanity expected, the three returned to star in a desperate start to the game. Frenkie, at least, fixed it with a goal worth its weight in gold.

And if we add to that that nobody understood what Ferran was doing on the right, Abde on the left and that Pedri was a lost player, Barcelona were sailing in Mendizorroza against un Alavés who with very little turned the duel into an insufferable, unbearable and tedious story in which nothing of interest happened.

The staging of the culé team was again disappointing. The only approaches to the rival goal were based on corner kicks and a shot by Luuk de Jong, but it is fair to state that without doing anything, Alavés closed the first half with the best chance when Pere Pons stood up to Ter Stegen and before the doubt of centering or shooting, he ended up passing the ball, which settled gently between the arms of the German goalkeeper.

The summary of the first half was that nothing planned had gone well and that Barcelona was still in a worrying catatonic state. However, there were 45 minutes left to change a landscape that Alavés was doing very well. Probably, those of Mendilibar were living their most placid match in a long time before the clumsiness of the Catalans.

The home team suffered a little more at the beginning of the second half, basically because Abde joined the match, Pedri began to weigh himself down and Luuk threatened Pacheco again, but the match was still far from what Xavi expected, that in his first movement removed Abde from the field to let Nico in. Ferran, although it did not seem so, was still in the field. Alba also followed, who invited Jason to join the long list of players who have stripped him this season.

In the last minutes of the game, where Barça was supposed to end up besieging the team from Vitoria, the culé team began to suffer. Alavés had more legs, but in the only play in which Barça interpreted the spaces clearly. Alba enabled Ferran who stood out with quality to give Frenkie de Jong a goal that serves to hide the garbage under the rug. But the last shot of Alavés in the discount that went to the hands of Ter Stegen, shows that tragedy was touched once again