EUROPA LEAGUE (RETURN) | NAPLES – BARÇA The European Barça has returned

Barça purged its European demons with an exhibition of play and goals in Naples, thrashing 2-4 in a match that meant more than just qualifying for the round of 16 of the Europa League. It means consolidating a progression that until recently was frustrated after each positive news. Xavi’s team took off in Naples with a round match that dominated from start to finish that served to have a perfect night in Europe after living so many nightmares.

Anyone who has been to Naples knows that it is a city of extremes where risk is part of the landscape. The traffic lights are optional, the motorcycle helmet is a decorative element, the cafes are sudden and forceful and the deepest conversations are declaimed based on beating decibels. All these peculiarities were assumed by Napoli and Barça from the start in the first part of the match that was played as if both teams were riding a tricked-out motorcycle.

The staging of the match was pure vertigo. With Barcelona overwhelming a Naples that did not give up, but could not before the deployment of Adama, who returned to the field like a tunnel boring machine. But this time, the one from L’Hospitalet accompanied him a Frenkie de Jong who took on stripes and a Jordi Alba who has become undetectable for rivals.

As much as Xavi announced that he wanted to play the game based on possession, Barça does not despise rock and roll. A style of play that Klopp himself would sign and thus scored his first goal thanks to Mourinho’s favorite move in his time at Madrid: A corner against, recovery, run by Aubameyang, passes to Adama who knocks down all the walls that are put in front of him to assist Alba who scores with the right. A goal that begins in the own corner and that twelve seconds later ends in 0-1.

On horseback of that much, Barcelona crushed Napoli for moments and in another recovery of the ball, De Jong scored the 0-2, which if the law of the double value of goals against remained in force, almost archived the tie.

With Naples lost and the stands whistling for their own, it was Ter Stegen, who in the previous one had vindicated himself, who brought the Italians back into the duel with a meaningless exit in which he knocked down Oshimen. The penalty was converted by Insigne before the statue in the botanical garden and Barça had to row again.

And he did it without complexes. He played for Barça in the last minutes of the first half to thrash the Neapolitans, but the ghost of the lack of aim reappeared until in the last minute of the first part, Pedri recovered a ball after a corner kick in favor, extended for Ferran who enabled Alba with a heel that put a cross that Piqué controlled in the Benzema style to score the third.

If with the 0-2, Barcelona again suspended the subject of sleeping the match, it remained to be seen if in the second half, following Xavi’s instructions in the dugout, Barça managed to defend themselves with the ball against a Napoli that was already going to the desperate one

It may be that the Catalan team, carried away by the city’s inertia and debauchery, were not satisfied with sleeping out the game, because, after all, who sleeps in Naples before half past ten at night? The Blaugrana team accepted the challenge of the locals and went to close the match with an imperial De Jong who created the play so that at match time Aubameyang scored the fourth for the squad in a goal in which the eleven players participated.

The game seemed so controlled that Xavi started with the relays, but again, Barça gave the rivals a chance with Nico losing a ball and Ter Stegen being, again, metallic. But the scare did not go beyond that and the message is clear: Barça has returned to Europe.