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The striker is closing in on a return to action
One of the more disappointing realities of signing a legend like Sergio Aguero is unfortunately his injury history. The Argentinian legend got hurt before even made his debut and was expected to be out for 10 weeks.
Now that we’re in the midst of his recovery and nearing the end, hopefully, they’re getting close to nailing down a return date. The goal, according to Sport, is October 17th against Valencia.
Barcelona are due to play Benfica in the Champions League before then and then Atletico in La Liga before the season pauses once again for another international break. Valencia is the first game back after the break.
There’s no doubt the Camp Nou will be happy to see Aguero grace the pitch after such a strange offseason. His production, when healthy, is something that Barcelona could very much use this season. So hopefully they’re conservative enough with his minutes to allow for good health.
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His goal gave PSG a two goal cushion against Manchester City
Lionel Messi has for the first time in his illustrious career, scored a goal in club football that was not for FC Barcelona. With a trademark goal, the #30 gave Paris Saint-Germain an important goal against Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League.
Idrissa Gana Gueye gave PSG an early lead but the Parisians have been under pressure from the Citizens time and again. With his team under pressure, Messi scored an important goal to give PSG a two-goal lead in the 74th minute.
Messi took the ball on the counter and dribbled from the right towards the center. Achraf Hakimi made a darting run on the outside, but Messi used him as a decoy and looked to combine to the middle. He played a one-two with Kylian Mbappé, who flicked it back with the outside of his boot. Messi took it first time with his left, from just outside the 18-yard box. His powerful strike flew into the top right corner, leaving Ederson with no chance.
Messi has been hampered so far in the early stages of the season due to injuries. The wait for his first goal with his new club was left protracted. This was a huge goal for PSG, in the biggest match of the season so far. After a draw in their opening match in the Champions League against Club Brugge, PSG badly need to get back to winning ways to position themselves to try to win their group, and they are looking likely to do just that against City.
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“It’s clear Barca is my home and I have a lot of love for it”
Benfica defender Alejandro Grimaldo will get a fun opportunity this week. The left-back will get to face his former team Barcelona. Heading into the match he had an interview with Sport and chatted about what a potential Barcelona return could look like.
“It’s not a closed chapter. Barcelona is my home and I won’t shut the door to my home ever. It’s clear they’re still one of the v best teams and I’d never say no,” he said.
“It’s something I thought, that when I left it was a see you later, not a goodbye. I was there eight years. I’m very happy at Benfica, I feel important here. But it’s clear Barcelona is my home and I have a lot of love for it.”
Grimaldo was then asked about the potential of celebrating if he were to score against his former club.
“Even my parents have asked me that! I won’t celebrate if it comes up. I’m going to be happy because I want to win the game and I’ll fight to the death for Benfica.”
Benfica head into the match in pretty good shape. The team drew their only Champions League game so far 0-0 with Dynamo Kiev but have won seven out of seven in the Portuguese league.
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Here’s the latest from the coach
Ronald Koeman is back on speaking terms with the press and held his usual pre-match press conference on Tuesday to preview Barcelona’s Champions League clash against Benfica.
The Dutchman offered an update on Ansu Fati, after his heroics against Levante, spoke a little bit about Luuk de Jong and the threats that Benfica will pose his team.
Here are the best bits:
Koeman on Benfica
We know they are a strong team and have an important place in the world of football. It will be a nice match and a match where we need a good result. There are two teams with their own style who will play to win so it will be interesting.
Koeman on if Barca will play as they did against Levante
I think part of the match the other day without the ball we played well, perfectly, which is what we want, to pressure the opposition and not let them play. And then when we have the ball to try to find the spaces between the lines. We always try but some matches work out better. This is another match and it will depend on our attitude, how we can pressure them, recover the ball and play.
Koeman on if Ansu Fati will be called up for Spain
I don’t know because I’m not the manager of the national team. I think the player still has a long way to go. For me it was a great day, a good match, we got Ansu to play his 15 minutes and he scored the third goal which was perfect for us. I can’t really give my opinion as far as Spain goes. All I can say he’s been out for 10 months, he’s trained a few weeks with the team and he’s played 15 minutes. That’s it.
Koeman on his line-up
I think the most important thing is to plan the match. You have to look at the opposition and the youngsters. Playing five matches in 12 days is a lot for any player so we have to look where the team is physically fresher and plan the match to get the best result
Koeman on Luuk de Jong
His signing was very last minute and to reinforce our attack because of the attacking injuries. As we’ve seen, little by little, we are getting our forwards back. He gives us a lot, different to what we’ve had. He was good the other day, he scored, he brings experience, he’s played a lot of times for many important teams in Europe.
Koeman on what Barca can expect from Benfica
We can expect a complicated match. I know the atmosphere they can generate there and the strength they have at home. I don’t think they are a team who are open a lot and leave much space. The Portuguese mentality is to control the match and have a strong defense with talented players up front. I think that’s what we can expect.
Koeman on if Barca will play like they did against Levante or be more cautious
Barca always play to try and win the match. Our intention is to control the match, get the ball and find spaces with the players we have got. The other day we played almost without a right wing so there are clearly a lot of options to change the team. We are missing players on the wing so you have to fill the middle of the field with players.
Koeman on how Ansu Fati is feeling
He is very tired emotionally because it’s been a big impact for him after such a long time out, training, scoring, being with his family. We need to take all that into account and how that could influence his mental state. He trained today without any problem. We will try to give him as much time as possible in the matches but it depends on how he is physically and mentally. I can’t tell you before every match how many minutes he’ll get, it depends on the state of the player.
Koeman on Benfica’s speed in transition
We have analyzed Benfica. We know where they have their strong points. We’ll try and stop them taking the ball and we know they are quick on the counter, they can do a lot of damage. It’s important to keep the ball. If we lose it, we need to organise ourselves well in defense. That’s very important.
Koeman on Benfica’s approach
I think it’s always good to have respect for the opposition. They’ve got the advantage of playing at home where they’ll try to attack and try to win. I think they play to win, it’s not a team that doesn’t want to lose. We are the same.
Koeman on Benfica’s most dangerous players
I don’t like to talk about individuals despite the fact that they have very experienced players like Otamendi or Vertonghen in defense, or Gedson at the top who is very fast.
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But still no Jordi Alba for the Catalan giants
Barcelona have confirmed that Pedri has been passed fit for Wednesday’s Champions League clash against Benfica after recovering from a thigh injury.
The 18-year-old has not featured since the defeat to Bayern Munich on September 14 but is included in the squad travelling to Portugal.
Sergi Roberto has also been given the green light after missing the win over Levante due to illness, but there’s not return yet for Jordi Alba who remains sidelined.
The return of the duo will give Koeman more options for what’s an important game for Barcelona after kicking off their group stage with defeat to Bayern Munich.
However, Dutchman may also have one eye on another big league match at the weekend with Barcelona heading to the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium to face Atletico Madrid.
Early reports suggest that Pedri won’t start at Benfica but Koeman does have plenty of midfielders available with Frenkie de Jong back from suspension and joining Sergio Busquets, Gavi, Riqui Puig, and Nico Gonzalez in the squad.
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A narrow shape and hunger off the ball set the stage for a dominant win
Barcelona finally brought some positivity back with an excellent 3-0 win over Levante on Sunday afternoon. While most of the post-match talk deservedly went to the triumphant return of Ansu Fati, the team played very well and gave us reasons to believe that they can be better than what we saw in the last few weeks.
When the team news were announced an hour before the game, though, Barça came out with a strange lineup, with players seemingly out of position and not a very clear idea of how they wanted to set up. Fans were understandbly worried about the game they were about to watch, but for the first time in a while we were all positively surprised by Ronald Koeman’s team.
Barça set up in a 4-2-3-1 formation, with Nico González and Sergio Busquets as a double pivot and Gavi playing on the right wing alongside Philippe Coutinho and Memphis Depay, with Luuk De Jong alone up top.
But the interesting thing about that shape was how narrow it was. More specifically, how it overloaded the left side of Barça’s attack.
Look how, with the exception of right-back Óscar Mingueza, the entire team is playing on the left side of the pitch. Gavi was anything but a right winger in the game, acting more as a right interior midfielder to completely overload the central area. Levante were in a 4-4-2 shape, but their two central midfielders had very little help from the wide men and were simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of Barça players in the middle.
That’s how the Blaugrana established early dominance in the game, and that is how they were superior for the entire 90 minutes. Levante never adjusted, and Barça never went away from the plan. With Busquets and Nico as a double pivot and Mingueza picking his spots on when to make runs as a full-back, Barça concentrated their offense almost exclusively on the left, with Memphis and Sergiño Dest doubling up on the full-back and creating havoc on that side.
On the rare occasions in which they did attack down the right, Barça stayed very narrow with their midfield shape and there were always passing options all over the pitch to build effectively from the back.
Watching Barça play such a narrow shape gave me flashbacks to the wonderful 2018-19 Ajax team that reached the Champions League semi-finals that season. Erik Ten Hag’s side played in a very similar way, overloading a particular side of the pitch depending on the opponent and not worrying at all about keeping width. It was all about having possession and winning the numbers battle in the middle, which was crucial for a team that didn’t have world-class attackers and relied on midfield dominance to create as many chances as possible to try and compete with the best teams in Europe.
Sounds familiar to the current Barça situation, doesn’t it? And interestingly enough, Alfred Schreuder, Ronald Koeman’s main assistant and acting head coach against Levante on Sunday, was Ten Hag’s assistant at Ajax that season.
But the narrow shape overloading the left wing was just one of two crucial pieces to Barça’s dominance on Sunday. The other was pressing: the Catalans were absolute lions off the ball, but were also well-organized to press effectively on goal-kicks and constantly win the ball back high up the pitch to continue suffocating Levante.
Barça went with individual marking once again, but unlike the disaster pressing strategy against Bayern Munich the Blaugrana were much sharper and aggressive in their pursuit of the Levante players, denying space and forcing either long balls or bad passes through the middle. Óscar Mingueza and Sergiño Dest were especially effective in their pressing, following their designated targets all over the pitch if necessary and winning the ball back.
Mingueza follows his defender to the middle of the pitch and wins the ball backSergiño Dest aggressively presses his man and forces a bad touch to win the ball back
It wasn’t just about pressing on goal-kicks, however. Whenever they lost the ball, Barça would hunt in packs, sending as many bodies as possible to win it back instantly.
Four Barça players surround two Levante men to win the ball back
Levante couldn’t breathe on the ball, and Barça never ran out of gas and stayed committed to their pressing strategy for the whole 90 minutes. It was the most impressive defensive performance of the season by a mile.
The game is about the players at the end of the day, and Barça had several very impressive individual performances on Sunday. Gavi was amazing, Busquets and Nico shined together as a very effective double pivot, and Dest was absolutely brilliant with and without the ball for the entire game.
It’s also very important to point out how bad Levante were: there were zero adjustments to the midfield imbalance and they offered nothing in possession, especially since their best attacking players are all injured. Shkodran Mustafi was a disaster at the back (hello Arsenal fans reading this, sorry for all the PTSD I just gave you) and right-back Jorge Miramón was quite simply destroyed by Memphis and Dest and wasn’t given any help.
But Barça have faced other bad teams before and didn’t play nearly as well, and to me coaching had a lot to do with it. I don’t want to be unfair to Ronald Koeman and I think he was heavily involved in team selection and the gameplan, so I won’t make the easy joke that everyone on Twitter made that the only reason Barça played so well is because he wasn’t on the touchline.
Unlike several games under Koeman, Barça weren’t set up to fail. The attacking gameplan took advantage of the players’s strenghts instead of exposing their weaknesses. There was no Sergi Roberto isolated against Alphonso Davies this time.
Gavi isn’t a winger, so he didn’t play like one; he was asked to be himself and always be close to the ball even if it meant not being in his “original” position, and that’s why Gavi was praised by everyone for doing what he’s good at instead of criticized for trying to do something he can’t.
The defense is problematic, so Nico and Busquets sat back and Mingueza, a defensive full-back, only made timely runs into the attack. Barça still managed to be effective with the ball while offering solid protection to the center-backs, because the attack was well designed and players were comfortable playing in roles they know how to perform.
Sunday’s game, with the obvious caveat of how bad the opponent was, proved that there’s still a lot of talent on this squad, especially in midfield. If they are coached properly, Barça can put up a good fight against anyone. Yes, sometimes they will be outplayed by better opponents, but if they play with the same hunger off the ball and are continually given a solid platform to attack they can still make themselves and the fans proud of their effort.
Barça fans aren’t stupid. No one is arguing this team should play like 2011 or 2015. But it can be a lot better, and Sunday showed that being better is possible.
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A round-up of the altest Barcelona news and rumors
Nine Masia graduates against Levante - FC Barcelona
No fewer than nine La Masia graduates featured in the spectacular win against Levante on Sunday, all playing their part in a dominant display from start to finish, with some of the most magnificent football of the season so far.
No appeal against second game ban for Koeman - FC Barcelona
FC Barcelona shall not be appealing against the second game for which Ronald Koeman is currently suspended in consideration of the Competition Committee’s verdict a minimum two-match suspension.
Pedri and Jordi Alba train with the rest of the squad - FC Barcelona
On Monday the first team squad returned to training after the win against Levante at Camp Nou on Sunday in which goals from Memphis, Luuk de Jong and a returning Ansu Fati gave them a much needed 3-0 win.
The lowdown on Benfica - FC Barcelona
After losing at home to Bayern Munich in their opening UEFA Champions League Group E fixture, Wednesday (9.00pm CEST) brings the first road trip of the campaign, a visit to Portugal to face Benfica. Here are all the essentials on the Eagles of Lisbon.
UEFA confirm no European Super League sanctions - Football Espana
UEFA have confirmed they will not be imposing any sanctions on the remaining three European Super League clubs. Europe’s governing body had previously warned of financial sanctions for any club who remained within the ill fated project in 2021 alongside potential future competition bans.
Ansu Fati believes the Barcelona number 10 is 'not a pressure' - Football Espana
Ansu Fati says taking the number 10 at Barcelona is ‘not a pressure’. The Barcelona starlet finally returned on Sunday after a the best part of a year out injured, suffering a serious knee injury last November. It has been a long wait to get back to action for Fati, but he made the most of it, scoring just 10 minutes after stepping back onto the Camp Nou grass as Barca defeated Levante 3-0.
Ansu Fati 'didn't imagine' dream Barcelona return would include a goal - Football Espana
Ansu Fati is delighted with his long-awaited return to action for Barcelona. Fati had been out since last November following a serious knee injury, but he finally returned on Sunday. In the 81st minute of Barcelona‘s win over Levante at Camp Nou, Fati was brought on and his return was made official.
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