A few days ago, Barcelona’s unbeaten run of 15 matches seems to be a distant event!
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Football is like that. Everyone’s eyes are on the successes and failures of the present time. Or why a storm of criticism against Barcelona, which has been unbeaten in 15 matches in a row even a few days ago? For one thing, Barcelona, which had been flying for some time, came down to earth this week. They have lost two matches in a row. The team, which lost to German club Eintracht Frankfurt at home in the Europa League a few days ago, lost 1-0 to Cadiz last night. Through this defeat, their name has been written in an unexpected record. This is the first time since 2003 that the Catalan club has won two matches in a row at the Camp Nou.
Barcelona also lost 2–1 in the Champions League after losing 4–2 to Deportivo La Coruna in a La Liga match in April 2003. In other words, the record that has not been set in the last 19 years has been set last night. However, in terms of strength, the Deportivo of that time must be far ahead of the present Cadiz. And traditional teams like Juventus are always stronger than Aintracht. It is safe to say that these two defeats are more troubling to Barcelona than they were 19 years ago. Xavi, the son of the team that took over as Barcelona’s coach a few months ago, didn’t want to be named in the record, at least not yet!
Gerard Pique and Ronald Arauho, the two main centerbacks of the team, did not play in this match. Eric Garcia and Clem Longley were dropped. In the last two matches, Barcelona had to digest three penalties for their ‘welfare’. Whether it was because of Garcia-Long’s XI or not, it seemed that the night would not be a special advantage for Barcelona. At the end of ninety minutes, the fears of the supporters came true. Former Arsenal striker Lucas Perez’s goal in the 48th minute was enough to snatch three points from Barcelona.
In order to qualify for next season’s Champions League, you have to bring positive results in every match you have. Because of that, Barcelona coach Xavi thinks that every remaining match is the final. The match against Cadiz was also a kind of final for Barcelona. “We lost a final,” said the former Al Saad coach. But we have seven more matches in our hands. We have to take our place in next season’s Champions League.
Xavi sees his own failure as the reason behind the loss. We created enough chances to get three points but could not score in the end. We need to find out what’s going wrong. Need to self-criticize. We need to get rid of this negative influence as soon as possible. Every match is now final. And we didn’t play this match like the final. We have to try harder to win.
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