Barcelona make the headlines once again after their great start to the 2020 – 21 season continues as they finally shine at The Balaidos after a long run of 5 years, yesterday evening.
Barcelona made their trip to the north Western City of Vigo for their second match of the 2020-21 La Liga season, with huge apprehension and stimulation, after a walkaway against tough Valladolid in their opener of the season.
The playing conditions at Vigo, was really tough because of the rough pitch of the Balaidos and also extreme weather condition, with the pouring rain and howling wind frantically looming. As the match kicked off, Barcelona acted imperious from the very beginning, making runs and sending bodies forward to provoke the deeply settled celta vigo defence and make space for themselves.
It didn’t take a very long time for the Cules, to score the opener of the game, after some pliant passing in the edge of the box made space for the Brazilian Coutinho to pass the ball to Ansu Fati, who brilliantly controlled the ball and scored a cheeky goal with the outer edge of his right foot, giving Barca the lead.
Barcelona dominated most of the time in the first half keeping 60% of the ball possession. Though the Celts got a few good chances, Barcelona’s defence and neto reigned supreme whenever Celta’s attack made any move.
As the first half was drawing to an end, Clement Lenglet was sent off, after he was the shown his second yellow card for his elbow at Denis’ face. The sending off of Lenglet forced Barca to bring Araujo on the pitch by substituting Griezman, to fill the defensive gaps.
As the second half started it was interpreted that the absence of a player would affect Barca, but the absolute contrary happened as Barcelona seemed stronger and better in the second half though they were a man down. In the 51st minute of the game, the magician Messi swirled his magic wand and went past 2 to 3 defenders, before rolling the ball towards Coutinho that took a deflection from the Celta defender and sneeked into the back of the net, giving Barca a 2 goal lead over the Celts.
After that another genuine chance came for Barcelona, when Coutinho’s strike struck the upright and deflected towards Messi, who scored in an empty net, but the goal was faultily ruled out, after Messi was subjected to being in an offside position, all tough he wasn’t. A few minutes later into the game Barcelona faced a really atrocious moment, as they came ever so near to conceding a goal, as Nolito’s well struck shot was shot was saved by Neto and fell in place for Baeza, who had a clear shot on goal, but luckily enough for Barca, Sergio Roberto made a beautiful tackle, which deflected the ball and forced it to hit the woodwork.
Barcelona then resisted the incoming pressure from the opponent’s attack and finally in the 95th min of the game, the magician once again showed his beautiful tricks to the audience which was lately mesmerized and took a shot on goal, which Villar saved and forced the ball into the air, which took a deflection from the Celta defender a fell for Sergio, who scored a gollazo and settled the match once and for all.
Barcelona had always struggled to succeed while playing at the Balaidos, one of the roughest pitches in Spain. The last time they won against the Celts away from home, was back in April 2015. But yesterday evening, as Barcelona slaughtered the Galicians 3-0 at the Balaidos, they once again proved that this season Barcelona are for sure a team to watch out for, even after some repeated faliure in the last few years.
Barcelona this year seem really strong both attackingly and defensively with the passion and the capability to conquer Spain as well as Europe.