This week in La Liga there was one huge upset, Barcelona fell to Alaves 2-1 in the Camp Nou.
I am here to tell you, Barcelona fans, do not start the overreaction to this shocking result. Off the top, I can tell you there is a precedent for this. Last year the same thing occurred early in the season versus Celta Vigo and at the end of the season Barcelona still emerged with another La Liga title. Now here, we are going to go over the match report and see what went wrong.
First, I think we can all agree that Lucho underestimated the strenght and resolve of the Alaves squad. This led to Lucho starting mostly backups and a just returning Neymar which meant he benched Messi, Suarez and Iniesta. On to Barcelona’s play, they dominated possession, according to whoscored.com a whopping 75 percent! Barcelona also dominated the set piece battle and controlled the game almost exclusively in Alaves backfield.
Now to be frank, it was not the play of Barcelona that led to the loss, as is the case in many of these upsets it’s a big piece of individual skill from the opposing team that makes the difference. That’s what happened with Alaves, the second goal was individual skill as Ibai Gomez dribbled in between three Barcelona defenders before curling it past Cillessen. Alavés, to their credit, did enough to maintain Barcelona away from goal.
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Alavés made sure to keep them in between midfield and the 18 yard box limiting the creative flowing style of Barcelona. Also, they were clinical with their limited chances, scoring on *50 percent of their shots despite only shooting 4 times on target. Alaves was the more physical team as well, with *18 tackles they really made Barcelona earn every play forward with a lot of choppiness and bruteness.
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Barcelona slipped early this year in the title race but with over *30 league matches yet to be played there is plenty of time to correct and fix a lackluster performance. Along with many key stars just finding their rhythm like Neymar and Turan, as well as, Messi and Iniesta coming back from injury knocks. It is still possible for a Barcelona treble which we are all hoping Barcelona can capture again.
*All statistics from whoscored.com
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