On a Sunday afternoon Hansi Flick’s Barcelona were presented with an opportunity to close the gap between them and Atletico and Real Madrid who had dropped points. It was a must-win match for La Blaugrana to get back into the title race.
Barca struggles to influence the game
Hansi Flick had lined up his players in the usual 4-3-3 formation with Araujo starting ahead of Eric Garcia and Gavi as the attacking midfielder. In the game’s early minutes, Alaves made ball progression extremely difficult for Barcelona as Eduardo Coudet had chosen a formation of 4-2-3-1. This meant that Alaves had the numerical superiority in the middle of the park and tight man-marking gave the Barca midfielders no room to create.
Although the No. 6 insisted on continuing the game Gavi had to be substituted by Fermin Lopez due to his head collision with Conechny. Lamine Yamal looked dangerous every time he had possession of the ball. On one occasion the starboy almost dribbled past the entire Alaves team giving Culers flashbacks of La Pulga.
Hansi Flick makes the right changes
At the start of the second half, Hansi Flick brought on Frenkie de Jong and Eric Garcia for Casado and Arajuo. This allowed Barca to have more control over the game as both Garcia and Frenkie are excellent ball progressors. Pedri was finally relieved from his duties at the back to help in the build-up and could trust Frenkie to progress the ball to the final third with only a little help from Pedri.
This worked for the men in blue and red as they looked more dangerous in attack. In the 61st minute, Pedri floated a ball over the Alaves defense and straight to Lamine Yamal who hit it with a first-time volley. The shot didn’t hit the target but presented itself in the path of Robert Lewandowski who sild in the goal to finally give Barcelona the lead. The Polish striker had a treble of goals the last time the two sides met.
Barcelona are back in the title race with an El Clasico still to be played. The hopes for the title race have renewed with Pedri being the main orchestrator.