the ‘old guard’ responds to criticism with goals

Sooner or later, the Barça of Xavi was going to hatch. The eruption was seen coming. He gave signs before the Athletic (4-2), maintained his presence against Spanish (2-2), deserved more against Naples, He came out in Valencia and signed it last night in Naples with a real exhibition. It has gone from being a team subjected to the success of individuals to being an effective choral team. All have improved in an effervescent way, even those of the ‘old guard’, highly criticized until recently. Alba is in his personal best moment, translated into goals and assists, and Pique It continues in ‘prime time’, to the point of signing up for Barça’s goalscoring history.

It took Alba eight minutes to unseal the score with 0-1. He went on the counterattack, at a fine speed (12 seconds), from a frustrated Italian corner kick to completing a meteoric transition. A locomotive action driven by a Adam brutal. Cession to the run to the left so that the left back scored with the right in the interior of the area. The connection between residents of L’Hospitalet worked perfectly.

Again to Shoulder straps

It was his second goal of the season after scoring against Athletic in the League, the 24th of his career in 413 games, five of them with the right. To find the closest precedent for his goal in Europe, you have to go back to October 2018 when he endorsed one against Inter in a 2-0 win at the Camp Nou in a Champions League match. The curious circumstance is that the coach was Spalettithe same one who sat yesterday on the local bench at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.

Pique He did not want to be less and signed up for the scoring party. With a minute to go in the first half, the center-back took advantage of a cross from Alba’s own left to score the 1-3. Somewhat historic, because he equaled Ronald Koeman as the defender with the most goals (15) in European competitions in the entire history of Barça. In his 596th game, just four short of 600, Piqué made his debut in the Europa League. The other 14 were signed in the Champions League. Koemanhis coach until recently, distributed 10 in the European Cup and another 5 in the Cup Winners’ Cup.

The youth squad is scoring 53 in his professional career as a Barça player and this season he has three in 30 games and spread over three competitions: League, Champions and Europa League. He is Barça’s top European scorer

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