Suárez points to Koeman – AS.com

Yesterday may not have been their last game, but if Barça continues like this, nor the lack of money and a substitute, they will be able to stop the death of Koeman's Barça. What the coach did not imagine, when a little more than a year ago he picked up that phone, is that, perhaps, one of his last shots would be unlocked by the one he called. For his Barça (Bartomeu's) it was no longer valid. His boots, he said, were already old, worn, written off. Those, the same ones, that yesterday, when the rest in the Metropolitan appeared, signed in blood and gunpowder the one that, pointed, to Koeman's epitaph (Although Laporta defended him at noon, he supported him). The 2-0 of Atleti. They could tell you karma. But his name is Luis Suárez. It is what it is.

The deep wound in Lisbon had not yet healed and the Dutchman already had those two bullets there, forced to watch his work from the box (for sanction). A Barça that plays surrounded by doubts, nerves and the smell of chrysanthemums. And that jumped to the match painted to the taste of the president, with 4-2-3-1, in the Wanda Metropolitano. Barça in tone Levante, without experiments. With speed, possession and young people like Gavi, yesterday on the left, rushing to the future to fade the present black. But, if it started as you know, as it is recognized, sect of the ball, the Barça was not deep. And chewing, chewing and scoring without depth or chances or shots on goal just leaves the game like tasteless gum. And all this was in Cholo's plans. Leave them possession and kill them on the counter, with pecks. They were all worn in their boots by João Félix and Lemar.

His ownership, that of both, together with Suárez, was the initial idea of ​​Cholo. Atlético easily hurt Culé's innocence. João and Lemar turned the grass of the Metropolitan into a labyrinth of mirrors in which introduce Araujo, Piqué and Mingueza and transform them into cones. The two most expensive signings in the history of Atleti, finally, working. After so many doubts, so many whistles, so many grays. ANDn the day when the Metropolitan was filled again, which roared with all its throats, the 68,000, a year and a half later. They both have the quick head and the artist's foot. His party was a master class on how to associate and find spaces. Between the two of them they tightened Koeman's shroud.

Before Suárez, Barça had been sent to the canvas by Lemar. That footballer with whom, Simeone, in this year and a half from the public away, He did the Lazarus thing: “Get up and walk”. What used to be just whistles, yesterday was all applause as he ran to the stands with the shield beating in his hand and the goool in his mouth. Lucho had intervened, of course, he had already smelled the blood. How Araújo and Piqué trembled every time João Félix approached, with those controls that looked like dribbles. The play was born in the Portuguese, impeccable driving, Suárez asked him with an open arms to put the ball first to Lemar, executor.

Barça was stirred. Tried it twice. First with a shot from the front of Coutinho that went out millimeters. Then with a center to the far post that De Jong did not reach, also by millimeters. Barça was melting at night, in its irremediable destiny towards nothingness, among the black that accompanies everything this season. Only Gavi was playing, it seemed, but he was too lonely. Turned off all its electricity from the start by Lemar, exploded by that goal at halftime. The one dislodged by Suárez, who, while asking for forgiveness, who knows what would roar in his head. That call.

Nothing would change with the second half: that sad photo of an injured Barça, so far from others. Because if he pressed back, in front he only had one chance from Coutinho before which Oblak raised his gloves with the red light. Koeman's men looked for it from set pieces, with Ansu Fati, but they seem to have forgotten which are the paths that lead to the goal, flat up, without unchecking, without breaks, without ideas. Atleti resisted and endured. He had won the game in the first 45 minutes. The signature of an epitaph, of an ending. That of Koeman, perhaps, only Laporta knows. Suárez's revenge. Just over a year since it was the other way around.