MADRID, 12 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Osasuna’s coach, Jagoba Arrasate, has assured that “the best Barcelona” is expected this Sunday at the Camp Nou, since, after the draw between Xavi Hernández’s team against Galatasaray, it is “very difficult” for “the big teams to be thick two days in a row”, and he recalled that they lack “one more victory to close the permanence”.
“Galatasaray was very good, but Barça could win that game. It is very difficult for the big teams to be thick two days in a row. The other day they were not precise, but you rarely see those teams play two games like that at home. I look forward to the best Barcelona tomorrow,” he declared at a press conference.
On how to stop the Barça team, he stated that “things must be simplified within the complexity”. “You know that, more or less, they are going to have 70 percent of the possession, you have to prioritize a defensive organization where you can be comfortable and minimize the rival, who does not generate as many chances for you, and in that thirty percent of possession, have things clear enough to be able to harm them. It is simple to say, but complex to carry it out, “he said.
In addition, he explained that the Catalans “are very good inside, but also outside”, and that they must be alert throughout the game. “It’s a difficult field, a rival that is at its best moment and we will have to do things very well to have options,” he said. “This Barcelona can have different game plans: they can come out to dominate you, but also to counterattack you. They have a lot of alternatives to be associative, play behind your back… It’s a more complete team,” he added.
“We have to cover those routes so that the ball reaches the top three cleanly. If we’re not good at creating them, everything that happens will be difficult to stop,” he revealed. “You have to threaten them, have the ball, win their back to scare them too, because otherwise the game will be very monotonous,” he said.
The Basque coach also considers that “now it is a more complete team” than in the first round, and that “they have more alternatives”. “It was a team that, despite playing with the same system, lacked some forcefulness up front, and now they are finding the goal with ease, because they have unbalanced players upstairs. The foci to stop Barça are more than one and more than two,” he stressed.
In another order of things, Arrasate confirmed that he will only have the losses of ‘Chimy’ Ávila due to suspension, a player who could have given them “verticality and depth”, and Areso, due to injury. “Oier has had some muscle discomfort during the week, but today he has been able to train normally and is in the call,” he explained.
Finally, Arrasate confessed that the team has “liberated” with the victory against Villarreal. “We know that with 35 we are in a good disposition, but I think we need one more victory to close the permanence. This is the tournament of regularity and the classification will leave us where we deserve, but we are ambitious and we want to finish as high as possible. Still we need one more victory to close the permanence”, he concluded.