SougarLord Posted February 16, 2021 Posted February 16, 2021 The Barcelona of Rome. The one in Liverpol. The one in Lisbon. And now also the one who faced Kylian Mbappé's PSG. "The more infamous life is, the more man clings to it." Balzac's sentence continues to mark the future of a club destroyed by its previous managers, still without a president, and with a team doomed to live badly in Europe. A scenario in which no one can hide the shame of him. Mbappé, in his first visit to the Camp Nou, showed that he could only be enough to devastate the Catalans. That he was not going to need the help of Neymar to leave Barça on the brink of elimination. That nothing would intimidate him the spectral presence of Leo Messi. Mbappé scored three goals, shattered his rival as many times as he wanted, and signed one of those masterpieces that mark forever. The fanfare of the Champions League tends to provoke decisions to the limit of sanity. Reckless even. Gerard Hammered had been almost three months without playing a game and that right knee made a few foxes should not be ready until March. At least that's what the doctors believed. But Piqué never liked the imposition of any rule. He was involved in the recovery and promoted his return. Not to make a big difference in the locker room, but to lead the team's suspicious defensive network against one of the best attackers on the planet: Mbappé. DANCING IN THE AREA But even Piqué's impetus to support the beardless French totem could not be enough. Mbappé was not going to need the escort of the injured Neymar and Di María to open the channel to Barcelona. He believed Koeman that a good solution would be to lay hands on the right side of Sergiño Dest, as fast as he is innocent. So Mbappé only had to move away from the lime to confuse Dest, to intimidate both Piqué and Lenglet, and thus allow Verratti to think and Kurzawa to take as many times as he wanted the shore. It was evident that Dembélé was not going to chase along with him. This is precisely how Mbappé's first goal was born. Verratti, a misunderstood genius, an excellent footballer but who was always penalized by the European curse of his team, tore apart the defense of Barcelona by sending the ball to Mbappé with a simple caress to the ball. And Bondy's striker, a neighborhood hero, just had to start dancing in the area. He knocked Lenglet down. He outlined a body that is not only that of a sprinter, it is also that of an artist, and took out a hammer that he had kept in his left boot. Ter Stegen was petrified. The initial advantage had lasted only four minutes for Barcelona. He was not surprised. PSG had been far superior since dawn, no matter how much the Catalans managed to advance on the scoreboard in a completely episodic action. Messi, with that disturbing gesture of frustration that accompanied him on other continental nights, found a moment of lucidity in a long assist to De Jong. The midfielder, who had won the race against Kurzawa, ended up on the ground in the area. Dutch referee Björn Kuipers swiftly signaled the penalty despite a first impression he gave the impression that De Jong had stumbled alone. The VAR, however, ended up ruling against PSG. A contact of the side's knee with De Jong's leg finally cleared the penalty. Justice in football is now delivered at the stroke of frame. Messi did not waver from 11 meters. But against Barcelona all those monsters that have been accompanying him during the last five years returned to parade. Do you remember that action in the first leg of the 2018-19 season semifinals against Liverpool? Dembélé then had a 4-0 in his boots that, who knows, might have prevented the subsequent debacle at Anfield. History repeated itself at the Camp Nou. TER STEGEN, ONLY BRA Right after Messi opened the game, Dembélé found himself alone in front of Keylor Navas. Kurzawa was on the floor and the forward had only to decide how to score and celebrate the 2-0. But all the doubts in the world found refuge at the foot of Dembélé. He shot so loosely, so focused, that one couldn't help but wonder why on his day there were those who preferred hiring him to Mbappé. A choice of those that change history. Barcelona, without control, without a ball, without a reference to whom to trust an impossible rebellion, collapsed. Ter Stegen held his own as much as he could until Mbappé completed his task in the second act. Another goal born from the wing, this time by Florenzi's, and a last parabolic hit seasoned another goal from Kean, whom no one scored in a lateral foul. Not even Griezmann, increasingly consumed, knew how to take advantage of a slip by Navas to give some life back from Paris. "But a wound / is also a place to live," wrote the poet Joan Margarit. Blessed sage.
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