The sport between Barcelona and Benfica within the UEFA Champions League on Tuesday evening couldn’t have been more strange than it turned out.
9 targets had been scored on the evening, three of which had been penalties. Two targets had been created by obvious errors from the goalkeepers whereas one was an personal objective.
Barcelona by no means seemed to be on target to win the sport towards the Portuguese giants and had been trailing for the higher a part of the sport.
Nevertheless, a late turnaround helped them seal a last-gasp win with Raphinha scoring the match-winning objective on a vicious counter-attack, giving Barcelona three factors towards the run of play.
Barça Common brings you three speaking factors from Benfica 4-5 Barcelona.
Szczesny’s howler
Regardless of what the finals scoreboard reads, Barcelona had been largely terrible throughout the sphere final evening with only a few gamers placing in a optimistic show.
It’s protected to name final evening’s first half at Estadio da Luz Barcelona’s worst half of the season, and it’s ironic how the identical sport might be remembered as probably the most particular wins of the season.
Of all of the gamers representing the crest, nonetheless, Wojciech Szczesny had essentially the most disappointing outing.
The Polish goalkeeper began forward of Inaki Pena on the evening however seemed shaky from the very begin. In the end, it was his sequence of errors that led Barcelona into the soup they ultimately landed in.
In simply the twenty second minute towards Benfica, the goalkeeper unnecessarily charged out of his field to win a ball Alejandro Balde had coming proper in direction of him. Szczesny’s surprising run caught the defender off guard and each gamers fell to the bottom after colliding.
The ball, falling straight into the ft of Benfica’s striker, gifted the hosts an open objective and the lead simply minutes after Robert Lewandowski’s equaliser.
Eight minutes after committing the blunder, the goalkeeper as soon as once more took down Kerem Akturkoglu within the field and conceded a penalty, giving Benfica a 3-1 lead and throwing away the momentum his aspect constructed.
Whereas the Polish shot-stopper has certainly proven promise this season, his two errors final evening coupled along with his sending-off towards Actual Madrid make it clear that he should enhance his decision-making.
Mentality of kings
A particular comeback. (Picture by Carlos Rodrigues/Getty Photos)
Barcelona should not normally a workforce related to grinding out wins from video games they haven’t dominated, however final evening’s efficiency added that feather to Hansi Flick’s cap.
The Catalans struggled towards Benfica’s low block over the 90 minutes and even stared at a two-goal deficit for a higher a part of the sport. At no level, nonetheless, did they offer up and their dedication to maintain preventing is heavy reward for Flick’s work.
Regardless of being behind on the scoreboard, beneath strain by the Benfica assault and having the group towards them in Portugal, Barcelona stored pushing within the last third.
A penalty gained by Lamine Yamal introduced the workforce to inside one objective of Benfica, and with simply 5 minutes remaining on the clock, Barcelona nonetheless pushed to seek out an equaliser that Pedri and Eric Garcia ultimately discovered.
As a substitute of settling for the draw after the hard-fought conflict, Barcelona discovered the vitality to push for a winner within the final assault of the sport as nicely and their psychological resilience paid off as Raphinha executed the counter-attack with a surgeon’s precision.
A particular point out goes out to Pedri who was sensationally good for the whole ninety minutes on an evening when all his teammates appeared to battle.
It was his management and imaginative and prescient that created quite a few probabilities for the membership and rightfully his help that gave Barcelona the equalising fourth objective.
Prime-8 locked in
Hansi Flick and Co. will take the three factors regardless of the efficiency dished out by the workforce. It might not have been a good looking win, however the three factors it granted are price their weight in gold.
With 18 factors in seven video games to this point, Barcelona sit in second place on the desk and have secured their place within the high 8.
The eighth-placed workforce at it stands, Aston Villa, are on 13 factors and may solely hit a complete of 16 factors in the event that they win their last sport of the league section.
Mathematically, Barcelona have thus assured themselves of a spot within the high 8 and direct qualification to the knockout levels.
The largest reduction for Flick’s males, evidently, is that they’ll now not should take part within the knockout spherical and thus save themselves from two additional video games on the hectic calendar.
With development within the Champions League, Barcelona can flip their assets and a spotlight to La Liga the place they’re in dire want of factors a minimum of till their Spherical of 16 fixture kicks off.