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Madrid
FC Barcelona drew 1-1 against Naples this Wednesday in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16. Although Xavi Hernández’s team played better than on other occasions, a defensive imbalance in the second half allowed the Italians to tie the match and reach the second leg alive, which will be played on March 12 in Montjuic. Several hours later, the El Bar team analyzed the match and the errors that prevented the Catalan team from winning.
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The first of them was Lluís Carreras, who pointed out that FC Barcelona started the match well, taking control of the game and stealing in the opposing half. A game concept, which seemed internalized last year, which, however, they have not been able to apply on the pitch throughout much of the season. Mainly in the second half, when the team does not know how to adapt to the reality that the match demands and the players who are on the field of play are not at the expected level: “The usual thing happens. You don’t kill, you don’t score and, when you score “You don’t control the game with your game.”
The cases of Christensen and De Jong
From Carreras’ point of view, the team does not put Xavi’s orders into practice when they take the lead on the scoreboard. Hence, he considers it necessary for the Catalan coach to stop the match to reorganize the team: “For the match, place the people and tell them what they have to do, because they should have it internalized but they don’t.” Although the players should know that they should not go for the second goal until they regain control of the team, the El Bar contributor believes that they rush too much and that this allows the rivals to find the necessary spaces to tie the game . But this is not the only structural failure of FC Barcelona. The Blaugrana team has several problems in the center of the field.
The first and most important of them is that none of the players last the entire match. Hence, numerous changes have to be made in this area of the field and the team loses control of the game too easily. To this we must add the fact that Andreas Christensen plays the pivot position, as he makes numerous mistakes because he is incapable of profiling himself when receiving the ball: “One of the things that Pep would surely do, and that Johan did with him in the past, would be teaching him how to profile himself. From his point of view, Christensen always receives with his back turned and this is a big problem for the culé midfield. To this we must add that Frenkie de Jong only drives the ball, which is causing him to not generate any type of connection with Gündoğan and Pedri. And how would this scenario be solved? Asking De Jong not to break the lines so much and for him to triangulate with his midfield teammates. A series of changes that will allow the midfield to be much more oxygenated and more recognizable.
The problem of Montjuic
The third big problem for this FC Barcelona is the decline they hit after the first half. Although the team faces the first 45 minutes well, everything falls apart after the final whistle: “When they have to go for the game, the changes lower FC Barcelona’s level a lot. This offensive disorder also harms the team defensively, which leads them to concede more goals than they would like. On this occasion, the reorganization of the squad after the first initial goal would help them to manage the match much better and there would not have to be so many changes due to obligation.
The fourth and last one seems more complicated to solve, since it involves the fact of playing in Montjuic. From the point of view of Aday Benítez, FC Barcelona suffers the pressure of everything that is happening to it every time it plays at home. Something that is causing him to play considerably worse at home than outside of it. Therefore, three of these problems have a direct solution and the fourth not so much.