Last night's El Clasico defeat was a very difficult pill to swallow. We literally dominated the entire game. And we had ample chances to go up 2, 3, 4 goals and we squandered all of it. We had Real Madrid bogged down literally for 85 minutes and a few minutes of madness cost us all three points when it clearly should have been us to come out with the win last night.
Difficult, very difficult.
Let's address the elephant in the room straight up shall we! Even though the referee did get on potential penalty call which we could have been given, we really did not lose the match last night because of poor refereeing. We were not robbed by the ref. We lost because we didn't take most of the chances we had after playing so well. Fermin Lopez hit the post twice, Inigo martinez once. There, right there we could have been 4-0 up and the game done and dusted. But no, we squandered our chances to keep real madrid alive going into the final 10 minutes of the game.
If there is ONE rule in football, it is "Do not keep real madrid alive if you have the chance, NEVER." Ask Man city fans and they will tell you how correct this rule is. Ask Chelsea fans and they will most certainly agree. Ask PSG fans and they will.....you get the idea!
We kept them alive and we paid the price. It is as simple as that.
We had the dreamiest of starts we could have dreamt of. Gundogan gave us the lead within the first 10 minutes. We controlled the game from the midfield with two 20 year old kids alongside Gundogan. We gave away nothing for real madrid to play with. We were so fucking dominant that our center backs were not even tested in the first hour of play. Vinicius Junior was in Ronald Araujo's pocket as usual and Gavi had Bellingham in his pocket. The first time Gavi was far from Jude Bellingham, he equalized.
Joao Cancelo on the right wing was super crazy from Xavi and not one I think worked. Now, had this gamble paid off we would showering Xavi with all the praise and call him a tactical genius and what not. But the fact is, it didn't. It didn't work and cancelo did not do what he was deployed there for - cutting in through the defence and making direct runs into the box and creating chances. The one or two times he did, it looked really dangerous. But he didn't do it often enough and the chances he created, his finishes were not strong enough. So it was a failed experiment to say the least.
Joao Felix and Ferran Torres pressed really well despite not having much clear shots at goal. But they really had the chokehold on the madrid defense. It was after these two were subbed off, we lost all control in the attacking third. Lewandowski looked extremely rusty coming off from injury and I am not sure bringing him on was necessary. Raphinha did well on the right wing, but as we have seen in the past - Both raphinha and Lamine Yamal can not be on the pitch at the same time. Lamine Yamal is not even 50% effective on the left wing as he is on the right. It was a stupid decisin, and what makes me angry is we have already seen this fail before. Why Xavi did that again is beyond me
Fermin Lopez and Gavi had a wonderful, fantastic game. And it is so unfair that the two best players on the pitch had to end up on the losing side. Fermin should have never been subbed off. He was the one linking play for Barca. He was the one making those dangerous runs into the box. He was the one the real madrid defense could just not deal with. The moment Oriol Romeu came on, we looked like a mid table team.
For the longest time, I have defended Romeu against critics. I am afraid I can not do it anymore. He is just not made for big games that Barca play in. He is great to play against weak teams. But come the big teams, or big champions league games, he should not even be in the squad list when Frenkie de Jong and Pedri are fit. He is in fact directly responsible for the winning goal from Bellingham. Romeu's honeymoon period with Barca is over. He is a squad rotation player at best.
And finally, Ter Stegen really needs to take a lot of responsibility for that first goal, and a fair share for the second. Both goals could have and probably should have been saved.
And we should have walked out with 3 points, deservedly so.
A very very difficult defeat to accept.
But we move on.