Five absurd minutes and a necessary smile: the hot notes from Las Palmas - Barça

BarcelonaBarça had a hard-fought victory in the league. The Blaugranas won with two goals from Olmo and Ferran Torres at the Gran Canaria Stadium and remain top of the league for another matchday. Here are some quick notes.

It's going to cost a lot. There will be more clashes like the one in Las Palmas. There will be more days when spaces are reduced to the bare minimum. There will be more afternoons when opponents defy the rules in every duel. There will be more evenings when Lewandowski and Raphinha, who are merely finishers, don't even notice. There will be more days when it will be time to ask for time. We are barely in February, there are more than ten league games left and everything is yet to be decided. There is a defined plan that guarantees personality, willingness and dignity in any scenario. Also in Europe, where the path has been paved. But calm down, this is very long and it will cost a lot. More than in Guardiola's time, when talent was more important than today.

Make a Pierre with Elm. The ARA explained a few days ago that Barça would analyse Olmo's muscles and the examination has already been carried out. With more information, the doctors and physios will know what to do to ensure that the player from Egar, who has been dropped from the line-up, can play two consecutive games at full capacity. The task is important. Basically because if things turn out like they did with Pedri, who this year has the reliability of a Soviet car after three seasons of injuries, Olmo will be even more decisive. He will be able to score more goals like the one that decided the game in Gran Canaria, after, it must be said, a great ambush by Lamine Yamal. Talent, no matter how hard they try to extinguish it, always ends up smiling.

Protocols that go up in smoke. With the score at 0-1, the controversy began. Absurd and less justified, in any case, than the one derived from a few minutes earlier, from Raphinha's fall in Cillessen's area. But let's get to the point. Sandro crossed into the Catalan area and Alex Muñoz, who was offside, challenged the ball, which after two rebounds ended up on Eric Garcia's elbow. The penalty was signalled, but it was invalidated due to the position of the local player. However, the VAR sent Cordero Vega to the screen to review something. It was five minutes of trembling that show two things: that the semi-automatic squeaks and that the refereeing team is under too much pressure. This will also be a long one, this...

The things of Thebes. The match in the Canary Islands started four minutes late. The Spanish league is not the competition with the greatest respect for schedules. Because of the obvious unpunctuality, because the date and time of the matches are set sometimes less than a month in advance and, as we have seen in recent days, they can be changed at will if it suits them. It matters little that people make plans to go to the stadiums. The TV operators are in charge and, in this case too, they have to look after the legs of Madrid and Atlético before they play their necks out in the Champions League. At Barça, also affected by the continental urgency, the opposite is true: one less day of rest before flying to Lisbon. No one can understand it.