Ansu Fati achieved what seemed impossible, that at Barça people talked about football again with enthusiasm. The Blaugrana forward confirmed that he is shameless in the best sense of the word. Oblivious to all the fires surrounding a besieged and wounded entity, a 17-year-old boy reduced the debate to the simplicity of pure cheeky football. That of overflow, that of verticality and that of definition. In the wake of that aroma of youth, Koeman's Barça started LaLiga by crushing Villarreal 4-0 in a match that gives reasons to believe again.
It had been a month and a half, 44 days to be exact, that Barcelona closed in Lisbon its most disastrous season in recent years with the beating of Bayern. In that period of time so many things have happened that football was hidden. Until this Sunday.
LaLiga Santander
* Data updated as of September 27, 2020
Seven players who were in that unfortunate day were wearing the Blaugrana shirt again and showed in most cases that there is a will to amend. An agitator was missing and that was Ansu, a boy without complexes who does not understand debates, burofaxes or motions of censure.
In 20 electric minutes the young Blaugrana winger finished the game. At a quarter of an hour of play, he shot a center from Alba, another that has put the batteries, with a shot with the interior that left Asenjo frozen. Six minutes later, a counter started by Coutinho with the coldness of a veteran culminated and in the 34th minute he continued to sour Mario Gaspar's night with an imposing change of pace that ended in a penalty. The kid, blessedly cheeky, took the ball and passed it to Messi to execute the maximum penalty that was 3-0.
LaLiga Santander
* Data updated as of September 27, 2020
With the game unbalanced and Villarreal absolutely lost, in a new against, Barça scored the fourth in the last minute of the first act when Pau Torres scored an own goal trying to prevent Busquets, yes Busquets, from completing the counter.
Emery had no choice but to get his hands on the team, He withdrew Alcácer and Coquelin to enter Iborra and Trigueros.
Nothing changed in the game, which continued to orbit Ansu, who continued to give the feeling that every ball that reached his feet could become a play to remember. Had the game been played with an audience, the expectation would have been noticed in each of their actions.
After the game hour, Koeman took Pedri and Dembélé out for Ansu and Coutinho, the two best Barça players in the match with Alba. The Blaugrana coach preferred to reel Griezmann, the least relevant in the Blaugrana attack in an attempt to make him join the general dynamics. He gave him ten minutes of margin that he did not take advantage of until he was replaced by Trincao.
The newcomers kept the level, especially Pedri, another who plays absolutely uncomplexed and with a veteran's rennet doing the most difficult thing in football, which is to make it look easy.
Barça also met in the back, where Neto gave a sense of security accompanied by a very concentrated Piqué. TAn important thing was to recover vital signs in attack such as finishing a match with a clean sheet again, something that penalized the team a lot last season.
Every revolution needs a leader and a flag and sometimes, the chosen ones are unexpected. Ansu became the standard bearer yesterday in an uncomplicated way of playing that is a breath of fresh air in an entity where no one had looked at the field for a long time.
Changes
Trigueros (45 ', Coquelin), Iborra (45 ', Alcacer), Ousmane Dembélé (69 ', Ansu Fati), Pedri (69 ', Coutinho), Takefusa kubo (73 ', Samuel Chukwueze), Trincão (77 ', Griezmann), Pjanić (77 ', Busquets), Ramiro Funes Mori (83 ', Albiol), Bacca (83 ', Gerard Moreno)
Goals
1-0, 14 ': Ansu Fati, 2-0, 18 ': Ansu Fati, 3-0, 34 ': Messi, 4-0, 45 ': Pau Francisco Torres
Cards
Referee: Guillermo Cuadra Fernández
VAR Referee: Alejandro José Hernández Hernández
Gerard Moreno (82 ', Yellow