Koeman and Messi, both handymen about which I know should support Barça to this day, they were the two great losers of the classic. The Dutch coach was daring with the eleven, but he was not right in the way of designing the contest nor was he diligent enough in the changes. He Argentinian added his sixth match before Madrid without scoring a goal nor give an assist despite participating in the 1-1. Certainly a sign of slope.
After 2:30 p.m., it was confirmed that Koeman he is a principled coach. Brave, he dispensed with Griezmann in the eleven and put two minors in the eleven, Ansu and Pedri; and even rookie how Dest. It didn't work. Koeman wanted to have the ball, but he displaced Pedri and Coutinho, who was being a decisive footballer in the dynamics of the game as a link between Sergio Busquets and De Jong. Barça already escaped well enough with 1-1 at halftime. The penalty ended up breaking him. Koeman preferred to wait a few minutes to see if the team would compose itself, but wasted time. Because it had no packaging, football or faith.
The lack of decision by Koeman He complemented what of Messi, that has become a moment player. The difference is that it starts to not be decisive in games that he dominated almost with one leg for seasons. Messi participated in the play of 1-0, but later could not define before Courtois an action that was routine a while ago. He is still a player with a unique intuition, who takes advantage of the opponent's error to add good actions, but Messi can't escape his status or his salary that you forces to do much more and dump the Classics on their side.
Messi and Koeman, each in his department, turned out insubstantial in the final stretch And, like two great locker room leaders, that makes him great managers of defeat. The Ramos last action, cutting off a transition to Messi with a neighborhood trick, was the frustrating epilogue to these bad times of the Argentine in the Classics.