Beyond Rakitic's goal that keeps Barça alive in the hand-to-hand fight for LaLiga with Madrid, The good news in the environment of the Blaugrana team is scarce. It can be highlighted the defensive improvement (the team has not conceded a goal since the championship resumed), the attack of bullfighting shame of some veterans (Rakitic, Piqué, Busquets) and the appearance of the young, who seem to today the only ones capable of changing the gear of a team that is as reliable as it is predictable.
Against Athletic Club, the match ran aground, slow, tedious and predictable until Ansu Fati and Riqui Puig entered the field. A player of youthful age and another with a profile of the subsidiary were together with the veteran Rakitic who cheered a Barça that saw how the championship was slipping from their hands.
Ansu was already the key player two days ago in the visit of Leganés to the Camp Nou. In a match very similar to Tuesday's in which Barça bought many raffle numbers to derail the championship race, the 17-year-old forward opened the scoring. Four days later, at Sánchez Pizjuán against Sevilla, he did not play for a minute in a game in which the Setién team was only able to create danger from a set piece with Messi's fouls.
In that match in Seville, Riqui did enter, who encouraged Barça's game. Against Athletic, he did the same when he replaced Arthur. The numbers of the Brazilian and the youth squad are not very different. While on the field, Arthur played the ball 43 times forward out of 70 interventions in the game. Riqui did it 12 times out of the 27 in which he intervened.
Similar statistics, but that do not correspond to the incidence in the game. Riqui is excited and you only have to look at today's headlines in the Catalan press to see that together with Ansu he is the standout as a shooter of a team that cries out for cheek and youth.
Setién arrived promising opportunities for the youth but every day before the game he has excused his intention in favor of the results. However, young people, in the minutes they have, ask for passage and in the face of an effort as intense as that of this championship in which the Barça could travel to Vigo with only 15 first-team players, the contribution of the youth team is as essential as it is necessary.
Especially up front, where Suarez is playing more minutes than the doctors recommend and Griezmann is inconsequential and in midfield, where De Jong is injured.