Barça overcomes doubts with a resounding 6-1 win

BarcelonaIt was time to win, and Barça won. And luckily, because Flick's team also hoped to improve their performance, but instead risked drowning in their own doubts in a match that at one point looked like it was going to end badly, only to end in a resounding rout. But before that, it was time to depart. In the Champions League's return, three goals from Fermín earned three points for an overly unstable team that only celebrated when their opponents were down to ten men. The goals served to gloss over Barça's performance, which seemed to be thinking too much about this weekend's Clásico, as if playing against the Greek champions at an odd time slot made them lazy. A Barça that, for a day, saw refereeing errors work in their favor. With a bit of talent, a bit of courage, and occasional errors from their opponents, the Blaugranas went from doubt to a rout. An insufficient recipe for winning in Madrid, where they will have to step up.

They had to win against the Greeks from Olympiacos to put the memory of the defeat to PSG behind them. And so they did. But the performance, overall, was weak, even though the goals came in the end. It was one of those games one prefers to forget unless you're related to Fermín López, the scorer of the first two goals in the first half. Two soothing goals, as Barça never got going with a lineup in which Flick couldn't hide the fact that he was already thinking ahead to the match at the Santiago Bernabéu. Araujo, the hero against Girona, remained on the bench alongside Ferran and De Jong, opening the door to a starting spot for young Dro, who showed little touches of quality and would become the second-youngest player in the entire history of the Champions League to provide an assist. He, too, won't forget a game that, generally speaking, many Barça fans would prefer to forget.

Barça never knew how to play consistently and with high tempo, and at times allowed the Piraeus team to get excited, imagining that perhaps they could make it big at the Olympic Stadium. But the reality is that a weak Barça is now superior to a good Olympiacos, who never wavered and were encouraged by El Kaabi's penalty goal at the start of the second half. The goal was celebrated by the 2,700 Greek fans, who appeared to be home fans, since in the Olympic Stadium, without the cheering stands and tourists, there is less excitement than on a Sunday leaving the twelve o'clock mass. The Greeks made themselves heard throughout the match, while more than one Barcelona fan lost their temper and even whistled at a team that has long since lost its joy.

Just as Pedri has also been losing him, lately looking angry and tired, and especially Lamine Yamal, who always shows signs of quality, but isn't feeling well, between injuries and having his head full of sparrows. Mataró's genius was evident at the end, once the Greeks were already a man down, but before that, not much. Lucky for Fermín, in fact, who knew how to take advantage of the fact that Mendilibar's team isn't one of those that dig in their heels in defense, which the Andalusian took advantage of by appearing twice to score two goals that he celebrated with all the rage in the world. Lucky for him, because then Rashford failed to make a difference, as he would do in the second half of a game in which, in general, Barça lost confidence instead of gaining it.

A very ugly match in which the referee even lent a helping hand to Flick's team by sending off the visiting Hezze, who already had a yellow card, for a practically non-existent foul on Casadó, who made enough of a fuss to get the Argentine sent off with a second yellow card. Since it was the second, it couldn't be reviewed by VAR. If it had been, the red card surely wouldn't have been shown. Shortly after, Rashford would receive a dubious penalty, in which goalkeeper Tzokalis lightly touched the Englishman after he had already lost the ball. But VAR called the Swiss referee, who decided to punish the Greeks. Lamine was unforgiving, and the match in which Barça could have been on the scoresheet ended up becoming a rout, as the enraged Greeks were no longer in the game. They were left to play a tragedy, as the match, which for an hour seemed fairly even, ended up becoming a tough rout. Flick's team did well to take advantage of this opportunity to draw blood with two goals from Rashford and a third from Fermín, in situations where the Greeks were late, misdirected the ball, or were inaccurate.

Sometimes, the final result doesn't really count for a game. And Flick wasn't happy with his team's performance. The result, yes. They had to win, and they did. But at the Bernabéu, we'll have to see a different Barça. The Whites aren't Olympiacos, and the officiating probably won't be the same either.