Messi directs the tribute – AS.com

Barça signed up in a big way to pay tribute to Maradona while launching the message that this League will fight. He did it with a 4-0 therapeutic win against Osasuna that Messi closed in honor of Diego in a match that could not be round due to the worrying injury of Lenglet, which leaves the Barça defense in a state of alarm.

Osasuna was the iceberg that cracked the hull of Barcelona's Titanic last year, winning at the Camp Nou. That day Messi declared in public that the team was not enough for LaLiga before the ocean liner sank in Lisbon. With Osasuna's victory in Barcelona, ​​the Blaugrana team began its collapse and four months later, against the same rival, Koeman's team showed signs of reaction.

The Dutch coach was aware that any stumbling block meant falling off the LaLiga race in November and yet he was brave in his approach, surprising with an initial team in which Pedri came out as De Jong's partner in the double pivot and with Braithwaite in the lead.

It is clear that the canary loves Koeman, who makes him play anywhere, while the Danish striker has found a place based on work and trade. He is not the cleanest forward in the world, but he does not stop working for the team offering alternatives to those who arrive from the second line and he is a nuisance for the centrals.

As an example of his contribution, serve the goal scored by the Dane and that made it 1-0 at half an hour into the game. It may be one of the ugliest goals that have been scored at the Camp Nou lately, but the question was to put the leather in Herrera's goal as it was. Braithwaite scored by percussion pushing a ball rejected by the goalkeeper with all parts of his trunk.

That goal unleashed a game to which Barça could not tie the loop because at the time of killing it was lost in arabesques, especially Coutinho, that in the 11th minute he missed a goal without a goalkeeper for kicking too softly allowing Unai to take the ball over the goal line.

Faced with the failure of the violins, which despite being led by a great Messi in creating the game could not find a goal, the Blaugrana team opted for percussion. First it was Braithwaite and then Griezmann. The Frenchman, fed up with diagonals, popped the ball from outside the area to score the second just before the break.

Koeman entered Busquets in the second half for Pedri to try to control more of an Osasuna who in the first half put pressure on the Barça players and even gave a couple of scares to Ter Stegen through Budimir, who had a goal disallowed for offside by Oier.

The Brazilian retaliated for his fiascos against the rival frame ten minutes into the second half when he scored a gift from Griezmann that made it 3-0 and left the game sentenced, which Koeman took advantage of to give entry to Junior, Dembélé and Trincão.

Everything seemed to be going well and it was pointing to a placid Sunday. But at this club, nothing can be taken for granted and at 67 minutes Lenglet was injured. With the French, the last center left to Barcelona fell, who went on to play with an emergency defense formed by Junior, Mingueza, De Jong and Alba.

The lack at the back was made up for by power up front, where Dembélé and Trincao teamed up to score a goal disallowed for offside before Messi scored the fourth to pay tribute to Maradona by displaying the Newell's shirt, Diego's penultimate team, with the number 10 on the back. Tribute completed.