Barcelona will finish the weekend in third place in the La Liga table and just four points behind the leaders thanks to a hard-fought 1-0 win over Alavés at the Montjuïc Olympic Stadium on Sunday afternoon. After a very difficult first half the Catalans improved just enough in the second to find the winning goal thanks to Robert Lewandowski, and have taken advantage of Real Madrid’s slip-up on Saturday to fully re-enter the title race despite a much less than vintage performance.
FIRST HALF
It is hard to remember a more frustrating half of football involving Barcelona than this one. It was like watching a Getafe game on steroids, with constant and long stoppages of play, one foul after another, a lot of offsides against Alavés, and just no rhythm at all to the game.
Because of that it is hard to even judge how well Barça played, as the Blaugrana simply didn’t have a chance to get their passing going before another stoppage happened. The biggest break in play came 10 minutes in when Gavi and Tomás Conechny clashed heads in the air, and both had to be substituted with potential head injuries after.
Other than that there were two more talking points: one was an extraordinary solo run by Lamine Yamal early in the game in which he ran through literally half of the Alavés team and avoided seven tackles in the process, and the other was a shot on target by Pedri, the only one by either team in the entire half.
The halftime whistle came after 51 extremely annoying minutes of almost no football and a whole lot of frustration for Barça, who needed to figure out a way to control the game, improve the flow of their passing and finally create real chances to get the winning goals in the second half.
SECOND HALF
Hansi Flick made a double change at halftime looking to improve his team’s passing and control at the back and in midfield as he introduced Eric García and Frenkie de Jong, who replaced Ronald Araujo and Marc Casadó.
The changes, along with a more aggressive attitude with and without the ball, improved Barça enough to finally make the home team look like a real attacking threat. The passes were quicker, players took more risks, and the chances started coming.
Robert Lewandowski had the first clear opportunity with a header that went just wide, and Lamine Yamal curled a beauty into the top corner that forced an amazing save by Jesús Owono. And the ensuing corner led to the opening goal: Pedri’s cross found Yamal who tried a first time volley, which was deflected perfectly onto Lewandowski’s path for a tap-in at the far post right at the hour mark.
Barça failed to capitalize on the momentum following the opener and allowed Alavés to hang around, and the visitors started to gain some hope that a comeback was possible. They committed more bodies forward, and started to bring some threat on the counter and with crosses into the box.
The game was absolutely still up for grabs as we reached the dying minutes, but the Blaugrana managed to run out the clock without allowing a late chance and the final whistle came to give them all three points.
This was a frustrating game that was hard to watch at times, but the second half performance was good enough to get a win. Barça will want to play better moving forward, but after Madrid’s loss on Saturday the job was simply to win. And they got it done.
Barcelona: Szczesny; Kounde, Araujo (Eric 46’), Cubarsí, Balde (Martín 83’); Casadó (De Jong 46’), Pedri; Yamal, Gavi (Fermín 14’), Raphinha (Ferran 67’); Lewandowski (Víctor 90+1’)
Goal: Lewandowski (61’)
Alavés: Owono; Tenaglia, Mouriño, Diarra, Sánchez; Guevara (Villalibre 90+2’), Blanco; Vicente (Novoa 76’), Guridi (Martínez 76’), Conechny (Martín 14’); García
Goals: None
