Before the match against Shakhtar Donetsk, Xavi Hernández asked two things from his team. Mathematically, they would make it to the round of 16 and bury once and for all the European ghosts of the last two seasons, when Barça failed to advance from the first stage of the Champions League. The second was to fix the sad image Anoeta created against Real Sociedad. It was won with the painful goal scored by Araujo in extra time, but the game was extremely inadequate.
The man from Terrassa said that just winning in Hamburg was not enough. You had to win by playing well. Neither one nor the other. Defeat against a very weak team, and again with a terrible game, a defeat that should invite deep reflection in the dressing room, because the defeat will most likely not have consequences for classification purposes, as Barça still have two more opportunities to document this, but the team and the technical staff will It has to be said that they will not get anywhere this season.
The team started the match with changes in the eleven, with Christensen, Marcos Alonso, Oriol Romeu, Ferran Torres and Raphinha joining. The first quarter so far has been interesting, high pressing and causing the opposition to make mistakes when clearing the ball. Of course, Barça could not take advantage of this due to Lewandowski being extremely slow. And little by little their good intentions were diluted. There were many problems creating chances and only two high shots from Gündoğan and Raphinha were the offensive burden for Barça in the first half.
The Ukrainians, on the other hand, managed to get dangerously close to Ter Stegen’s goal with quick and easy counter-attacks and damaged the defenseless Barça defense. Araujo and Christensen, who often had to fight one-on-one, had work to do, and Ter Stegen saved the goal with Matviyenko’s shot in the 14th minute. In the 40th minute, Sikan’s cross from the right of Shakhtar’s attack beat Christensen and Ter Stegen but could not do so.
Even with changes
The dynamic of the match did not change in the first minutes of the second half; Shakhtar could not expand their advantage due to Ter Stegen’s accuracy and good positioning against Gocholeishvili and Sikan’s shots. So Xavi didn’t even wait a quarter of an hour to make changes to the American style. He didn’t like anything or what he saw and replaced four players. Balde, Lamine, Joao Félix and Pedri were the players the coach chose to try to change the face of the game.
The changes were noticeable at the first moment. Once out, Lamine crossed down the right, but Joao Félix was at fault for his shot. Barça are slowly getting Shakhtar into their own half, moving the ball from side to side but are unable to find any space to penetrate the very slow and orderly Ukrainian defence.
Unable to disturb Riznyk with either play, courage or belief, Barça players became desperate as the minutes passed. In fact, things could have been even worse if Newerton’s late goal had stood and been disallowed for just a few centimeters of offside. Qualifying will have to wait and come, but the most worrying thing right now is the team’s play.