Spanish Barcelona defeated its Swiss guest, Young Boys, with five clean goals in the match that brought together the two teams in the second round of the group stage in UEFA Champions League.
Barca was able to score its goals through its players, Robert Lewandowski, who scored two goals, while Rafinha and Inigo Martinez scored two other goals, while Young Boys defender Mohamed Ali Kamara ensured that the Catalan team completed the scoring with an own goal.
Barcelona’s attack is merciless and Rafinha continues to shine
In every analysis we have presented here about BarçaThings were clear to us. Barcelona is a very strong team on the offensive level and is able to establish a strong, well-established system for its attack that gives it diversity and effectiveness against competitors’ goals.
Therefore, with a team much smaller than Barcelona Kyung Boys, things were settled for the offensively strong Catalan club, which in the Flick era is distinguished by its diverse sources of danger.
The German coach returned Rafinha to the depth of the attacking midfield after he removed Pablo Torre from the starting lineup and included Ferran Torres for the first time since Dani Olmo entered the starting lineup before his injury, so Torres played on the left flank and Rafinha became the free player in the middle.
The truth is that Rafinha’s level has greatly benefited Barça deep in the midfield. The Brazilian player offers a lot on the field, whether by getting close to Lamine Yamal, being an outlet for the ball to exit from the right front and breaking any possible siege. Rafinha himself also plays excellent through balls and diagonal balls to Lewandowski and Torres, while they were the most prominent and beautiful. His pass is in the second goal for Lewandowski with a corner that incapacitates the goalkeeper and puts Martinez in the position of making a decisive pass to Lewandowski.
But Rafinha’s most important advantage remains his distinctive ability to move behind defences, and today the suffering of the Swiss defenses was no different from his movements, even though the Brazilian was benefiting from playing as a winger to play as a full-back, but today it was not a problem for him to be exposed to the two centre-backs, and yet he took advantage of any move by one. They meet Barcelona’s midfield to move into the spaces they leave behind.
An opportunity to experience more and the defense issue continues
The match was an opportunity for more players, such as Pau Victor and Hector Forte, to get more minutes, while it was difficult minutes for Andreas Cuenca after his participation. While the match was an opportunity for the return of the injured Frenkie de Jong and Ansu Fati, hoping to add some depth to Barcelona’s squad.
Although Barça presented a wonderful attacking display, the issue of being exposed to some dangerous opportunities remains present even in an easy match like today’s match. Young Boys missed an opportunity that almost gave them a draw against the flow through Ebrima Kohli, while the chances that the Catalan club were exposed to in the second half of the match cannot be considered The second half was due to laxity only, as most of those chances were from the same obvious problem that Hansi Flick insists on ignoring, which is the advanced defense without putting pressure on whoever will pass the ball, so we saw several one-offs for the visitors, one of which they scored a goal from, but a few millimeters canceled it out due to offside.
Why, Flick?
This paragraph may suit those who love self-flagellation among Blaugrana fans. But it may be justifiable self-flagellation. The ease of today’s match may lead some to wonder about Flick’s strange decision to exaggerate in resting the players in a strong match against Osasuna, despite its difficulty compared to the match with the Swiss.
Perhaps the response is that if the reserves had participated today, Barcelona would not have appeared in such an excellent image, but the truth is still clear to everyone about the difference in strength between Barca’s competitors. Osasuna is a cohesive team, not to mention playing at home, while today Barcelona played a semi-friendly match against a team known as… He has no choice but to face the attacking power of the Blaugrana.
However, things like this happen sometimes and let’s see if Flick will react differently when exposed to the same situation or not.
