The winners and losers as VARcelona escape Valldollid pitch nightmare with 1-0 win

In a tricky night on a terrible pitch, Barcelona saw off Valladolid and walked away with a 0-1 win.

It was a difficult night for the Blaugrana as they had to content with more than just a hungry and organised Valladolid side. They did enough to get the win, but who were the winners and losers?

Loser: The pitch

There’s no other place to start than with that godawful nonsense of a surface that Barcelona and Valldolid were forced to play on. The newly promoted side had their pitch relaid just a few days ago (despite having been able to do so since the middle of June) and it was quite clearly unprepared for the stresses of a football match.

The grass was cutting up repeatedly under even the most basic of pressure, any time a player changed direction or took a shot a whole clump of grass would pop up as though were were several Diglett beneath the Estadio José Zorilla.

It was farcical to watch and enormously impacted the quality of football that the players were able to produce. Naturally this effected Barcelona more and acted as something of a leveller, but it was still inexcusable. This kind of pitch isn’t just a leveller but it is actively dangerous to players who dribble and play with pace. Thankfully no one was injured but the players were under no illusions, with Piqué speaking post-match, pointing out that “it’s a disgrace that there are pitches like this.”

Winner: Ousmane Dembélé

In the end, the only Barcelona attacker who seemed to genuinely be able to handle the shambolic surface was Ousmane Dembélé. The French winger was able to run freely and even change directions without losing his balance, and as a result he was Barça’s best player.

The World Cup winner played much of the first hour on the left of attack and was a constant source of danger for Valladolid, always running at his opponents and putting in dangerous crosses too. He messed up a great chance to score (or set-up Luis Suárez for a tap-in) but never let it get to him, always making runs and defending hard.

It was fitting, then, that Dembélé was the one who scored Barcelona’s opening goal. Just before the hour mark he shifted to the right side and when Sergi Roberto headed down Luis Suárez’s cross, Dembélé was in enough space that he could strike the falling ball first-time and send it bouncing off the nonsense pitch and into the back of the net.

Loser: Leo Messi

For over a decade, defenders have wondered how to stop Leo Messi from dribbling the ball. Asier Del Horno tried taking his kneecap off, that didn’t work. José Mourinho tried parking the bus, that only worked some of the time. Real Madrid have tried almost everything you can think of and it just doesn’t work. But Real Valladolid have finally found a way!

Messi’s entire dribbling style is feints and darts, shifting his body weight on a dime and accelerating and decelerating in a short space of time. When the ground underfoot is coming loose under minimal stress, Messi simply can’t dribble properly. It’s like trying to rollerblade on a multidirectional treadmill.

Of course Messi still played a handful of glorious, impossibly magnificent passes. He’s Messi after all. But Valladolid finally found a way to stop the best player in the world from being a threat when running with the ball, and that’s huge.

Winner: Enes Unal

Making his debut for Valladolid tonight, Enes Unal was looking to have a big impact on the match. Despite being just 21 years of age this is the eighth club he will have played for professionally; that’s absurd for a player of his talent. He knows that a good loan spell here in central Spain and he is more likely to play with Villarreal (or be sold to another club) next season.

Despite conditions, Unal put in a superb performance for Valladolid. He was a neverending thorn in the side of the Blaugrana, competing physically with their centre-backs but also having the athleticism to pull wide and run the channels. He was playing so well that when he was taken off with 20 minutes to go, it was genuinely confusing. And as a seeming punishment, when substitute striker Keko got a glorious headed chance, the kind Unal would have buried, he put it straight at Marc-André Ter Stegen.

Loser: Nelson Semedo

You have to feel for Nelson Semedo. The Portuguese right-back is a sublime defender whose only real weakness is not yet having a great understanding of how to break down a deep defensive block. This was on show in the season opener against Alavés, where he was replaced by Sergi Roberto.

And the Catalan got the start at right-back tonight too, though a tricky away game is when you want Semedo’s solid defensive presence and fast forward runs. This was seen during the game as Sergi Roberto played terribly. In attack he offered little and defensively he was catastrophic, constantly getting caught upfield and exposing Gerard Piqué to near constant overloads and pressure.

So why is Semedo a loser? Simple: because even that shocking display will be forgotten as Roberto did what he always seems to do: impact the scoresheet. Roberto just has a knack for making things happen and when he chased down an overhit Luis Suárez cross that he had no right to reach, he ended up setting up the game-winning goal. Making it even harder for Semedo to win his place back.

Winner: VAR

In the 91st minute of the game, substitute striker Duje Cop had the ball on the left and sent in a teasing cross into the middle where fellow striker Keko, who had missed a sitter earlier, rifled home a dramatic equaliser. The home crowd exploded and Keko roared towards them, ripping the shirt off his body and screaming with joy. This was Valladolid’s first goal since returning to La Liga and it was a 91st minute equaliser against the Champions!

Except it wasn’t.

A VAR review was underway. And just like earlier in the match when Luis Suárez’s goal was correctly disallowed, VAR got the call right and chalked the goal off because Keko was offside when the cross came in. Valladolid were crestfallen and Barcelona, who lost the 2013/14 and 2016/17 Liga titles because of two disallowed goals (vs. Atlético Madrid and vs. Real Betis, respectively) that VAR would have given in their favour, celebrated as much as they had when Dembélé scored the winner.

They had escaped the nightmare pitch with a win, all thanks to video assistant refereeing. Visca VARça!

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