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Deportivo La Coruna walked away from Riazor with a rather deserving 2-1 win over a lacklustre Barcelona team who looked completely drained from all their exertions of mid-week. But any team serious of competing at multiple fronts should have it in their reserves to draw something special when it matters but it seems that the Catalan’s depleted their season’s worth of magic at the Camp Nou. They still top La Liga, but Real Madrid are just a point behind and now have TWO games in hand (including tonight’s match against Betis) Pepe Mel’s magic meanwhile has seen Deportivo rise from the relegation-threatened quagmire to a much more comfortable 15th place.
Here’s what we learned from a brilliant match at the Riazor:
1. Barcelona’s second string simply not good enough
Arda Turan, Denis Suarez, Andre Gomes – three players you don’t generally see starting for Barcelona, and today showed why. The three were ineffectual as they sought to replace the likes of Neymar, Andres Iniesta and Ivan Rakitic and really had no impact on the end result. While Luis Enrique gets a lot of brickbats for his experiments with formation (and he deserved some today, that 3-4-3 with a midfield of Denis, Roberto, Busquets and Gomes was just disastrous), it must be said that the bench strength at Barca is nothing like what they used to have and that has had as much of an impact on domestic results this season as the coach’s strategies or lack thereof.
Barcelona will need to spend well (not much, but smartly) in the summer to ensure they are better prepared next season.
2. Pepe Mel’s brilliance could see Deportivo to safety
4 games, 2 draws and 2 wins. Thus reads Pepe Mel’s record at Deportivo less than a week ago – and a club that were in freefall for the vast majority of the season up until now suddenly seem a reinvigorated side. If the lead they carried into half-time had a touch of the smash-and-grab about it, the second half saw a brilliant performance from Depor – their second goal coming at the end of a ten minute spell where the home side hammered Barcelona into the ground. It really was a class performance and showed just how much they’ve improved in such a short time under Mel
Mel’s unbeaten record is unlikely to last the duration of the season, and Deportivo La Coruna are not going to hit the heights of “Super Depor” of the eary 2000s but Mel said his players had begun smiling again before the match – after it, A Coruna was left beaming in the pouring rain
3. Barcelona’s set-piece weaknesses exposed yet again
Boy, Barcelona cannot defend a set-piece, can they? Their defensive achilles heel was exposed repeatedly – and smashed to smithereens twice – by Deportivo. With Pique the only decent defender of the ball in the air, they were at Depor’s mercy whenever they conceded a corner. They missed Umtiti’s height at the back, and needed Suarez to double as main defensive header-out.
Their failings at the other end are less talked about, they won 8 corners and did the square root of nothing from it all. While they are a short team, surely Enrique and Unzue ought to work out patterns that can maximise their strengths moving forward – and minimise them while defending.
In fact, the closest anyone came to scoring from a Barcelona corner was when Deportivo broke forward and messed up a three-on-one situation in the last minute of stoppage time.
4. Deportivo La Coruna’s performance highlights revival of La Liga
The highlight of Deportivo’s performance was the sheer calmness that they displayed under immense pressure from arguably the most feared attacking unit in the land. They didn’t just lump the ball clear, and instead elected to pass the ball out – some of their one-touch passing from the back taking the breath away. Their performance today highlighted two major points: the superiority of La Liga vis-a-vis domestic competition elsewhere, especially when we talk about pure technique on the ball.
The other one is that La Liga in itself has become so much more competitive than the two-horse race that so many experts and laymen football fans across the world lambast it to be. No one is rolling over anymore, and as Las Palmas showed against Madrid and Depor showed today, they are more than willing, and importantly able. to stand their ground and play football their way. What’s not to love?
5. Suarez and Messi have off days as Barca hand advantage to Real Madrid in title race
Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi have both been having a quite week now. While Suarez went missing in the Celta game last weekend, and Messi sacrificed himself in the PSG game – they both went missing today. Sure, Suarez grabbed the equaliser with a smart finish almost immediately after kick off in the second half, but he missed a gilt edged chance soon after. Messi, meanwhile, simply had a horrible day in office – arguably his worst ever game in La Liga.
Does Raymond Domenech have a point? Is Leo Messi losing it?
Without Neymar to pick up their slack, the two superstars were found wanting, and their slip up could prove to be incredibly costly
With Real Madrid having narrowly edged past Real Betis, the title race has now heavily tipped in favour of the men from Madrid.
