VALENCIA – BARCELONA Auba boards the Gavi and Pedri train

Barça responded at the Mestalla and reconquered the Champions League positions by thrashing Valencia 1-4 in a new display of efficiency that was Aubameyang’s first great performance in LaLiga. If Barça succeeds up front, they have a lot to gain because they still lack control of the match and in defense they continue to leave many doubts, especially Ter Stegen. But if you start stinging with Auba and end up leading with Pedri, few teams can be found Xavi that stand up to him on his good days. Another thing is that Valencia was shipwrecked again and that the Catalans lack continuity.

A match at the Mestalla between Valencia and Barça is the closest thing to Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to find. Once again, both teams, which are united by having the most exciting social life in LaLiga and which often play more during the week than on match day, did not disappoint expectations, which were marked by the style debate. No way. Chronicler stuff. When Valencia and Barça go to Mestalla, the match has numbers of being fun. It was.

At Barça, Xavi gave rest to Pedri, who ended up being the owner of the game, and kept Frenkie de Jong, while Dembélé seems to have conquered the ownership again in an attacking line that has nothing to do with that of the first part of the match. championship. Torres, Aubameyang and Dembélé, with all due respect, are not Memphis, Braithwaite and Demir.

Barcelona gives the feeling that its matches are played on the red and black of roulette. If there is maximum efficiency ahead, prize; if the car swerves, to suffer. In the first part, everything went to the Blaugrana team.

He holed the first three shots he fired, he was lucky that Marc André-Ter Stegen, who was undoubtedly Valencia’s most dangerous footballer with a first part worthy of a comic film he ate a ridiculous goal that came after offside, that he swallowed another Bryan Gil center that hit the crossbar and that he didn’t even find out about Valencia’s goal that the referee annulled because the ball had gone out the side.

The German catastrophe in the Blaugrana goal had its compensation in a very fine Aubameyang, that he already warned after 19 minutes and that he showed his best virtues (going into space) with two goals in the 23rd and 38th. In both, he brushed offside, but in that first part everything went smoothly for the Barcelona fans . Between the two goals of the new culé striker, to which Mestalla is given to cinema because he had already scored a triplet with ArsenalFrenkie de Jong joined Dembélé’s pass.

But it is to highlight the role of Jordi Alba, imperial in attack seeing the gaps and suffering in defense. He saw a yellow card that will prevent him from playing the next day and almost saw the second in the play of the disallowed goal against Valencia for out of bounds for touching the ball with his hands.

Under normal conditions, a 0-3 in favor of Barça would have been the match file, but this Barça already experienced the same in Vigo, where it already let this advantage slip away.

On the way out, Eric had to leave his position to Mingueza when he noticed discomfort, while Bordalás won over Maxi: a fabulous ingredient to animate vibrant matches.

And as with these protagonists and that scenario the motto is as a rule, “what will happen, will not leave them indifferent”, Valencia shortened the distance with a goal from Carlos Soler with a header that, again, could point to Ter Stegen’s locker . Since he couldn’t change the goalkeeper, Xavi tried to regain control of the game giving entrance to Pedri for De Jong, who is uncomfortable with sharp scenarios. And the duel was not for squeamishness, it was for people like Pedri, who looked at the goal the first time he could and surprised Mamardashvili, who in a noble gesture of a partner did not want to leave the German alone that he had no more trouble until the end of a match in which Aubameyang joined the cause.