VILLARREAL-BARCELONA Barça prevails in the chaos

Barça survived a completely uncontrolled match and managed to win a 1-3 match against Villarreal in which the Blaugrana team went from being groggy and on the canvas to delivering the final blow at the right moment. A team that is supposed to be the example of order knew how to take advantage of the most absolute chaos.

Villarreal and Barcelona came to the duel sharing the pain of being two teams with serious problems to score goals and of doing poorly in the chaos. In the end, Barça solved the former better than its rival and surprisingly got used to the latter.

The start of the game was, to put it bluntly, a huge mess. With a Barça that did not know if he was defending with three or four and a Villarreal that exploited those doubts to turn the right wing of the Blaugrana defense into a highway in which Pedraza looked like Gento.

Right from the start, the game attracted the attention of the spectator with a very harsh tackle from Parejo to Busquets in the first minute that the referee decided that it was nothing more than a foul and that he mediated several of his subsequent decisions, such as not considering more than a foul a kick from Alba to Yeremi or nor consult a hand of Piqué in the area when going to the ground to block a shot from Danjuma.

The mess had two parts: a first in which Barcelona ate Villarreal from the start and a second in which the locals ran over the Blaugrana

On the Blaugrana side, Abde headed a corner kick that Rulli deflected to the crossbar, Gavi shot the post and Memphis wasted absolutely only one face to face with the rival goalkeeper.

All of that happened in the first 20 minutes. From there, Barça disconnected from the game and Villarreal exploited the right wing of the Blaugrana defense where between Danjuma and Pedraza they unraveled the Barcelona team to the point that Xavi’s team ended up asking for the time already in the first half.

After 45 minutes of madness, the incredible thing was that the half-half was reached without goals, however, on the points the match was for Villareal, who had managed to rebuild from a start in which Barça was unable to overtake in the marker.

But the ways of football are inscrutable and the goal that seemed impossible to achieve in a crazy first half, only took three minutes to occur at the restart. But it was not easy either, because De Jong’s goal when pushing a ball that Rulli rejected in the first instance to Memphis needed a thread counter to be validated by the VAR draftsmen.

Considering what was seen in the first half, the game was far from decided. If Barça had managed to score, Villarreal could also do it as soon as they tried. Unai brought in Estupiñán and Chukuwueze, two perfect players for crazy matches. Xavi, saw the bet and raised it: Dembélé entered the field. The game became the closest thing to those books in the ‘choose your adventure’ collection: depending on who had the ball, one thing or another could happen, all unforeseen.

In case someone missed scares in the script, Alba was injured and replaced by Mingueza, who happened to watch Chukuwueze, who after three minutes already made a mess, but his assistance was wasted by Trigueros. On the second occasion, he no longer forgave and He did it on his own to tie after portraying the culé defense who lost a ball after a throw-in in favor.

Again, the final minutes were presented as an ordeal for a Barça that could not cope, drawing water before the harassment of Villarreal. Barça could not do anything other than throw balls forward and in one of them, by Ter Stegen, Estupiñán failed to clear and Memphis accepted the gift to beat Rulli. Villarreal’s attempted reaction was deactivated by Coutinho, who converted the penalty he suffered into discount. Barça, who seemed to be about to throw in the towel, took advantage of the chaos and gave the final blow.