Messi Scored His 100Th Goal Against Olympiakos
Soccer has long been the least in the Camp Nou. It seems inevitable. Except for the Parlament, perhaps there is no scenario more precious for the claim that the Barcelona stadium. Josep Maria Bartomeu is determined that his Barcelona play ” la puta i la Ramoneta”. That is, trying to get well with everyone even knowing that, well you will end up cheating, well you will make a fool of yourself. In matches of dark and inter-war courts such as 1-O against Las Palmas – where they played at an empty door – or Champions against Olympiakos, the ball simply passed by. It was not the case of Leo Messi, always agitator, always prepared to grab attention.
All right. The small audience that defied a rain curtain and approached the Camp Nou booed with an impetus that banner indescifrable – Dialogue, Respect, Sport – that had agreed on the Barça with the UEFA to intervene, in its way, in the political skirmish. And just as Barcelona opened the scoring, after that 17-minute call for Catalonia’s independence, the Camp Nou ignored the celebration and looked directly at its own stage. There where some of his enemies live. And he requested the release of prisoners from the ANC and Òmnium leaders, Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart. What I said, football was the least.
Let them tell that pair of oriental fans, with their built-in Barca kit, which they celebrated as if there were no tomorrow that the camera would notice them. Of course, at the same time that Gerard Piqué – one more day in his world – was expelled by scoring a goal with his hand. The first yellow one had also earned it with justice after a tarascada in the dawn to Odjidja. The central one urges him more to recover the concentration than the form.
Lack of spark and nerve
But let’s go back to the reason for this chronicle. The Barcelona was played to smooth definitively the step towards an eighth of the end of the Champions. Its classification, although not mathematical, should not be in any danger. This Twilight Olympiakos, fifth in the Greek league – little less than an infamy for the Hellenic champion – could only oppose saving face.
And well they got it for a long time the Greeks before the cachazudo game of a Barcelona that, beyond playing all the second half with a less man, lacked spark and nerve. The azulgranas players, seeing the embarrassment that supposed to put a hand to an Olympiakos with the 11 footballers encased in the last 20 meters, preferred to whistle and watch to run the clouds. Already Messi would appear to remove them from such tedium.
And that the party started with a certain spirit. Ernesto Valverde revitalized the eleven with the entrance in the lanes of Sergi Roberto and Digne – you by the loss by injury of Jordi Alba -, of Paulinho in the place that usually occupies Rakitic, and Deulofeu in that right edge so precious. Especially active were the Brazilian and the end of Riudarenes.
Fifth goal in own door
Paulinho, priceless in the wide area, became bigger every time he was ready to attack the area. While Deulofeu tortured throughout the first act to Koutris, incapable of resisting the center that would end in the inaugural goal. The 19-year-old midfielder Nikolaou, very poorly profiled for the clearance, only managed to enter the ball in his goal. Statistics are still curious. There are already five goals in Barcelona’s own goal this season.
The goal made Olympiakos stagger. Iniesta saw him, who gently swung the ball towards Paulinho’s head. Proto’s goalkeeper was out of the reach, though he managed to block a blow to the ball.
It was hard for Luis Suárez to catch up to the match with only one in his last 11 Champions League games. Although the most despaired this time was Piqué, expelled three minutes from the end of the first half and that forced Valverde to a change that speaks of the pragmatism of the technician. Mascherano by Deulofeu. Except that Olympiakos gave him to cheer up. Something that, of course, did not happen.
Messi would not let him. The Argentine had spent 45 minutes in Babia. What’s up. The shadow of the Argentine would end up occupying the gigantic steppe of the Camp Nou. It took the ball of the frank coup that was to give him his goal 100 in European competitions with the trust of the immortal. All the opposite of Proto, beaten even before the leather passed over the barrier.
Emboldened Messi, he rejoiced in the break and opened the door of the skies to Digne for the sentence. The changes again tempered the night. A spontaneous was reduced on the same line as he tried to assault the field. Nikolaou amended his initial error with both of the honor. And the footballers went to sleep amid shouts of “independence” and “freedom.” The sound box of the Camp Nou.
