Big winners & losers as Barcelona's free-kick king helps thrash Espanyol

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In a one-sided beatdown, Barcelona smashed local rivals Espanyol 0-4.

The Blaugrana were in sublime form at the Cornella El Prat, destroying their rivals in style to go top of the table. Who were the winners and losers?

Winner: Leo Messi

Leo Messi was pretty in pink tonight. The Barcelona captain stepped into the arena of their fierce local rivals and unleashed hellfire upon them. His free-kick after 17 minutes roared into the top corner of the net with the kind of speed and accuracy that shouldn’t be possible without an ICBM. That was 0-1.

Then when he got the ball on edge of the Espanyol box he dribbled by a couple of guys before being turned back by a solid defensive challenge. This forced him to the floor, but he continued to fight for the ball and tried to play it off to Arturo Vidal; but the Chilean was stumbling over himself and could only knock the ball back to Messi unintentionally; but he was vertical now and without even looking played a stunning pass inside the full-back for Ousmane Dembélé. The Frenchman turned in and shot. That was 0-2.

In the second half, just after the hour mark, Barcelona had earned themselves another free-kick. This time it was a bit more on the left side of the pitch, favouring a right-footer. Having gifted Suárez an earlier free-kick only for the Uruguayan to hit the wall, Messi stepped up this time and arc’d it around the wall like light through a prism. That was 0-4.

As always with Messi, in addition to hitting the stat sheet like a sledgehammer, he produced countless moments of magic that most players would be happy to see go on a “Goals/Skills/Dribbles” end of season YouTube compilation. Meanwhile Messi confuses up loads of these things every game; most notable tonight was a gorgeous clipped chip pass played first-time over the Espanyol defence leaving Luis Suárez with a wide-open 1v1 shot at goal, which he missed.

Lionel Messi. The best there was, the best there is, and the best there ever will be.

Loser: The Ballon d’Or

France Football are probably feeling a bit sheepish right about now. It’s one thing for Messi to not win their bauble, a player can have a sensational season and raise their level so much (as Luka Modric and Cristiano have done in 2018 and 2017 respectively) that awarding them is fine. But Messi has to be second, at least, because he is by far and away the best footballer on the planet.

The game against Espanyol, coming just a few days after the ceremony where Leo Messi was named the fifth best player on the planet, seemed like the perfect riposte to the journalists who voted for the award and almost entirely discounted Messi from their thoughts despite him carrying Barcelona to La Liga and the Copa del Rey. Next year the voters may want to pay attention to all football, not just a dozen games in the Spring and Summer.

Winner: Ousmane Dembélé

For a 21 year old playing just his second full season of football, Ousmane Dembélé sure does draw an avalanche of criticism that you don’t even see much less impactful grown men receive. His fee perhaps makes this understandable, but it is patently absurd that a player who wins Barcelona so many games could be criticised so often for giving the ball away and looking terrible for most of the match. Didn’t a dude win four of the last six Ballons d’Or for doing pretty much exactly that?

Anyway Dembélé got a chance in the first XI because of an injury, and tonight he more than took his chance. First with a stunning finish, picking up a Messi through-ball and cutting inside onto his right foot, launching the ball hard and fast beyond the despairing dive of Diego Lopez. Then as the half was drawing to a close, Dembélé played a gorgeous pass in behind the defence for Luis Suárez to score.

One goal and one assist in the Catalan derby… what are those haters gonna say now?

Loser: Philippe Coutinho

Poor Coutinho. He’s been pretty good for Barcelona since joining, but he’s had a ropey few games lately (a hamstring injury hasn’t helped) and lost his place today to Ousmane Dembélé. The Frenchman’s excellent performance now puts Coutinho into a very tricky position.

Obviously the original intent behind signing the Brazilian was to include him in a midfield three, not as one of the forwards. But the problem with this was that having Coutinho in the middle unbalanced the entire side in terms of defensive transitions and Barcelona leaked goals like a screen door on a submarine; so he was moved up-front, where he now looks to have lost his spot.

A change of formation to 4-2-3-1 would allow all four of Coutinho, Dembélé, Messi and Suárez to line-up together in a defensively coherent structure – but Ernesto Valverde’s loyalty to Ivan Rakitic essentially negates that possibility; leaving Coutinho out of luck.

Winner: Arturo Vidal

Eyebrows were raised when Barcelona spent €19m on an injured 31-year-old with temperament issues in the summer. Eyebrows were raised further still when Vidal began complaining on social media about a lack of playing time. Surely Barcelona knew this guy would be an issue, right? Why did they sign him?

What people forget about Vidal is that not only is a serial winner, a constant big game performer and an intense hardman – but he played for two years under Pep Guardiola. He knows how to play possession football, he understands positional play, and he gets tempo control. Vidal showed all of those traits in abundance during the derby against Espanyol. It really was a tactically perfect performance from the midfield veteran, so much so that at the end it was him and not the experienced Barça players who was calling for the team to slow the game down and simply keep the ball. Very promising for the future.

Loser: La Liga

With Sevilla drawing with Valencia in the last second earlier in the day, all of La Liga was watching this derby and hoping that the talented Espanyol who, despite poor recent form are having one hell of a season, would take their local rivals to task. After all Barcelona have shown a vulnerability away from home and their clean sheet last week was their first since the start of the season.

But, no. Barcelona rocked up to the Cornella El Prat and smacked fire outta Espanyol. Their rivals were never in the game; even their impressive second half fightback ended up amounting to nothing as their only goal was ruled out for offside. So Barcelona moved three points clear at the top of the table, and given they now have two clean sheets in a row, the fear for the rest could be that they now start racking up the wins and pull away from everybody.

The post Espanyol 0-4 Barcelona: Key winners & losers as Messi scores two free-kicks appeared first on Squawka News.



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