Barcelona already gives respect. The azulgrana team seems to be leaving its crisis behind little by little and on Thursday they exhibited a great game to get into the round of 16 of the Europa League, thrashing 4-2 at the Napoli field.
“It’s a very important victory that gives us a lot of morale, a lot of confidence,” said Barcelona coach Xavi Hernández after the match at the Diego Armando Maradona.
The azulgrana team annulled the Italian team, unable to get rid of the advanced pressure from the Barcelona fans, non-negotiable for Xavi.
“Physically we have endured the whole match, under high pressure and under pressure after losing we have been very good”, added the Barça coach, happy with a “very important victory against a Champions-level rival”.
“Message to Europe”, headlines the Sport newspaper this Friday, while for Mundo Deportivo “Barça is already on display”.
In Champions positions
In four months, since his arrival in November, Xavi has managed to rebuild a team adrift, now a serious contender for the Europa League and has managed to get into the Champions League positions in LaLiga, one of the club’s great goals.
Barça is already in fourth place in the Spanish championship, although it is still far away, 15 points behind the leader Real Madrid.
The Barça coach landed in November at the Camp Nou protected by his aura as a club legend, but his journey has been a roller coaster until the arrival of the winter reinforcements that have given the team an extra solidity.
Without losing its touch philosophy, Barça is no longer afraid of the direct game and the verticality that men like Adama Traoré, Pierre-Emerick Aumbameyang or Ousmane Dembélé provide, with whom Barça seems to have reconciled, at least for now , after the controversy over its non-renewal.
“We’re on the right track. We’ve managed to have long possessions several times, but we’ve also taken advantage of transitions with Adama, Ousmane, Ferran… That’s a style of play too,” Xavi said after the match.
“For the first time a Barça project without Messi was glimpsed,” the director of Mundo Deportivo, Santi Nolla, said in his column this Friday.
‘Gunpowder up’
“Barça showed exciting records, which had already been recorded in other games, but above all, they made a declaration of independence to move without the very positive, and sometimes somewhat negative, tics of the presence of the football magician dressed in Barça Nolla added.
Xavi seems to have found the key with the combination of the veteran Sergio Busquets, essential in midfield, Gerard Piqué or Jordi Alba, with the strength of the Gavi, Nico or Pedri, who once again showed their best level against Naples.
Pedri, recovered from the muscle injury that kept him out of the competition for the first half of the season, is once again the midfielder who amazed us last season.
In front and hand in hand with Aumbameyang, Barça is also recovering its punch.
The Gabonese, the last reinforcement of January, accumulates four goals in two consecutive games after his goal against Napoli and the treble endorsed against Valencia last weekend in the Spanish championship.
“Now we have real gunpowder upstairs,” said central defender Gerard Piqué, after the game, assuring that the match against Napoli “is a message to people from outside that little by little we are coming back.”
The victory against the Italian team prolonged Barça’s reaction in the League against Valencia (4-1), but Athletic Bilbao arrives on Sunday to continue certifying that streak, waiting for what the European round of 16 draw brings League.
