BEVERLY HILLS, April 06, (THEWILL) – The day of a decisive fixture for Barcelona began as any day of importance for the Catalan side: with a recognition for their superstar Argentine Football maestro, Leo Messi. In their March 15 match, which was a 4-1 home victory against SD Huesca, Messi equalled the 767 appearances of club legend Xavi Hernández and against Real Sociedad, a 6-1 away win, the Argentine set a new record of his own.
As a result, in a ceremony before the day’s tie against Real Valladolid at the Camp Nou began, a special tribute to recognise the remarkable achievement was organised in honour of the record breaker. Fellow team captains Sergio Busquets, Gerard Piqué and Sergi Roberto presented Messi with a special shirt signed by all of his team-mates. It was a shirt from the 2003/04 season of Messi’s first team debut.
Ceremony over, it was time to get into the business of the day for Barca: to win at home and pile the pressure on League leaders Atletico Madrid by slicing three points off their lead at the summit of the standings and reducing the gap to only one solitary point.
However, before French forward Ousmane Dembele thumped in a 90th-minute desperate strike to help Barcelona beat Real Valladolid and take advantage of Atletico’s slip up in their 1-nil loss to Sevilla on Saturday, Ronald Koeman’s charges were short of their best for much of the first half and did not look like the resurgent side that had won their previous five top-flight matches before the international break.
This takes on more significance when the circumstances of the visitors are considered. Coming into the match, Valladolid were hanging in tight just three points clear of the relegation zone in 16th position. However, they were on a four-game unbeaten run with their last defeat, a 1-0 loss to Real Madrid in February, which has kept their dreams of staying afloat alive in La Liga for a third straight season.
The visitors were missing about five regular team players and had to contest against the hosts with a makeshift set of players in almost every department. Yet, they made Barcelona sweat to victory and it required a 90th minute Ousmane Dembele goal just to scrape a 1-0 win to draw within breathing distance of Atletico.
Scrappy or not, La Blaugrana gladly basked in the opportunity to claim the three points on offer because Valladolid resisted so well to keep the marauding throng of Barca from their goal even after going down to 10 men with the sending off of Oscar Plano for ploughing into Dembele from behind.
Finally, it was the same Dembele that broke their resistance with his 90th minute goal. The volley left the Valladolid keeper flustered, after his excellent work throughout the entire game. It proved to be a huge goal for the hosts as it was the only goal of the game and they were poorly on the day. In addition, it could prove to be the one that leads Barcelona to topple Atletico from the summit.
Diego Simeone’s Atletico had La Liga for the taking at the turn of the year in the 2020/2021 calendar. At a time this season, they had created a serious gap between themselves at the top and the entire chasing pack for them to be close to being crowned the unofficial champions. Real Madrid were musing letting go of Zinedine Zidane while it was chaotic scenes at Barca with losses in matches they usually easily won.
Simeone was cruising, Luis Suarez was enjoying a return to goal scoring prowess and the team was playing good football making sure of victory in every match until the slump began prior to Atletico’s UEFA Champions League quarter-final tie with Chelsea. The two legs against Chelsea, which brought qualification for Thomas Tuchel’s side instead of Simeone’s made it clear that something needed to be done to arrest the slide.
What the table now illustrates is that Atletico will play the rest of the games this season under intense pressure and will always have to be looking over their shoulders especially at the two sides Barca and Real, who both threaten to apply a last minute surge and grab the title from the jaws of Atletico, leaving them to look back at what could have been their year, with baleful regret.
The setting at the top of the table could not have come at a better time for La Liga as El Clasico comes up next pitching second-placed Barca, on 65 points, against Real, on 63 points in the chase to top Atletico, currently sitting on 66 points. Yet, it should worry Barca that despite having all their attacking players on the pitch, they found it difficult cracking the Valladolid defense.
That is not the type of performance that will bring anything profitable against Real. It is Koeman’s task to dust off that rusty exterior, which left the Barca side struggling against time to get into groove for the very significant, if not the most significant, contest for deciding who takes the ultimate crown, the titles, at the end of the campaign.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
