Anwar Ibrahim (Cairo)
“When your team fails to score goals despite the almost complete control it imposes on the course of the game, in the end you have to be punished.” A famous saying in the world of football, Barcelona of Spain burned him in the match in which they were guests of Bayern in their stronghold, the Allianz Arena, in the second round of the group stage of the Champions League.
The Barça players can only blame themselves for the result of this match, which ended 2-0 in favor of the Bavarian team, despite having witnessed continuous attacks by Barcelona against Manuel Neuer, especially in the first half. .
In less than 4 minutes, with the start of the second half, the Germans managed to settle the game not by a goal, but by two consecutive goals on two clear errors of defense and midfield of Barcelona, the first scored from full force French-back Lucas Hernandez in the 50th minute, and the second scored by the German winger Leroy Sani in the 54th minute. , to continue the “German knot”, despite the great optimism that prevailed between the Barcelona players and their coach Xavi Hernandez, but also stretched to most of the world football experts who spoke in their analyzes before the match of the fact that Barca had become “changed” from the second half of last season, since they have not lost any games since and managed to occupy the second place in the Spanish league “La Liga” after the champion of Real Madrid. Furthermore, experts expected Barcelona to win or draw at worst, with Bayern at home. But the Barcelona players disappointed their fans, their coach’s ambitions and the expectations of the experts, because they lost easy chances in the two halves of the match.
This unexpected result, not in line with the progress of the match, and the chances of each team, made Xavi annoyed and very angry because he believed that his team deserved to win, it was not for the ineffectiveness of his forwards and their inability to translate the many real chances that appeared to him into goals, due to frivolity and lack of concentration in front of goal, as happened with the dangerous Polish striker Robert Lewandowski, who missed three real chances in front of Manuel Neuer’s goal, as if the German goalkeeper was saying to him: how do you score against the team that has made you famous for so many years, and with him you have achieved all the titles and leagues possible ?!
Xavi also said in his press conference after the match: The difference between us and Bayern is that they do not tolerate in front of the goal and take advantage of a quarter of the opportunity to score, noting that the result does not reflect the progress of the match nor the performance of the two teams, but it is a recognition at the same time that this is the case of the Champions League matches: if I fail to score of the many chances that have come to you, you have to pay the price for that with goals in your goal. He added: “We had 6 or 7 real chances to score, especially in the first half, and we played from the start to win, not just draw, and we should have won, but we are still learning from our mistakes and we will keep working. hard in the next matches “.
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