Barcelona, humiliated in Rome, outside the semi-finals of the Champions for the third consecutive year
The azulgrana team leads a historic collapse and is out of the Champions
Barcelona lived in Rome one of the greatest ridicules of its contemporary history. After a surreal performance and a small team, the Valverde team allowed them to go back 4-1 on the way to certify their incredible elimination in the Champions League quarterfinals . Manolas, ten minutes from the conclusion, confirmed the great azulgrana fall. [Narration and statistics: 3-0]
Dzeko , a torment for the azulgranas, had already awakened the demons at dawn before the firecrackers and the flares of hell. The Barcelona, terrible, frightened, surrendered to the ball, staggered. I blew blood. He saw how the Italian team was around the goal that ended everything. He praised Ter Stegen for his intervention in front of El Shaarawy . But he could not resist. Neither did he deserve it.
Yes, Sergio Busquets played with pain in the foot and with a reinforced boot. And Sergi Roberto, escorted again by Semedo, was warned of sanction. It did not matter. Valverde, who on the eve admitted without complexes to be always ready for defeat, for the arrival of the scythe, prioritized resistance to the government. Bad symptom He also threw in the same alignment as the first leg . If that side double team had thrashed the Roma (4-1) -with two goals in own door-, why play it? The operation, however, was by no means the same.
Excessive nervousness
The nerves gripped the muscles of the azulgranas. Messi and Suarez were exiled to a nonexistent center of the field. Without any authority. Nobody thought it was convenient to hinder De Rossi , capable of breaking down the lines of Barcelona with a pass from the center of the field. Jordi Alba lost the race with Dzeko. Umtiti, in free fall since he felt an urgent salary increase necessary, did not know how to contain the Bosnian striker. Ter Stegen, who did not move from his position, only waited for the Olympic to break out with the opening goal.
He knew Eusebio Di Francesco, technician of Rome, that the miracle would only come if he twisted his plan. He advanced his line of pressure. He risked. Aligned three centrals, located a hand's breadth of the divide . Eliminated the extremes so that the banks were territory for long-distance runners (Florenzi, Kolarov). And he wound up the most expensive signing in the history of the Giallorosso club , young striker Schick. To know how much the disaster would have advanced if the boy, despised by the passive Piqué and Umtiti, had not erred badly 2-0 at half an hour.
He had to poke the mitten of Ter Stegen to avoid, shortly after, that Dzeko also left the Roma to a single goal of the classification. Barcelona could still sigh because the referee of the match, the French Clément Turpin, refused to call a penalty after a fall of Kolarov against an uncontrolled Semedo.
Messi could only look back
Put to find reasons to the dismal performance azulgrana, nothing like the null competitive tension of who was believed already winning. Taking the ball from the rear was nothing short of an odyssey. The band of Iniesta and Alba did not exist, while that of Sergi Roberto and Semedo was little more than a goat trail. Busquets had no control over the situation. Rakitic ran without knowing very well where . And Messi, already deranged, could only look back. Never forward.
If someone thought that Barcelona was going to recompose itself in the second act, it was very wrong. Valverde did not offer any solution to the great plan of Rome, which was none other than the kilometric pass to Dzeko to the heart of the area. The defense swallowed one of them again, this time from Nainggolan. And Piqué, already overcome, only found a remedy in the grab . The area referee corrected the main referee, who had done the Swedish with the penalty. It ended up indicating the maximum penalty, although it freed to Piqué of the expulsion. Then he would compensate by closing his eyes before the second yellow to Fazio after entering Iniesta.
Pasolini said that the real football, the raw, is the one played in the heart of the suburb. Barcelona never understood, so dwarfed that he did not even know who was the goal Alisson. His elimination revealed a drama that had been warning. Nobody wanted to see it.
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