Barcelona played visiting Levante in their second league game of the season, and from the very start, one felt that this was by no means going to be easy. Trips to the Estadio Ciudad de Valencia have invariably been tricky, and thus it proved with this encounter.
The conditions were against the visitors, but Levante had all at their disposal to oppose Hansi Flick’s team. The hosts carried out their strategy perfectly and deserved the 2-0 advantage at half-time.
Hansi Flick experimented with four attackers, but that didn’t quite work out. Having seen that, he introduced Dani Olmo and Gavi at half-time, and the match immediately changed.
1. The high-line from Barcelona was all over the place
One of the missing names of Barcelona last night was that of Inigo Martinez. Without the guidance of the leading Spanish veteran, no one inside was able to coordinate the backline in containing Levante.
Eric, Balde, and Araujo failed to seize critical opportunities to do so, which facilitated some perilous counterattacks by Levante.
Cubarsi showed good positioning, but struggled in defensive battles. The young Spaniard was often outmuscled by Levante’s attackers and found it tough to hold his ground.
Hansi Flick will need to fix this issue quickly and get the high line working again. If not, it could cause problems in bigger matches, since their style is risky when the high line isn’t solid.
2. Pedri – jack of all trades and master of them all
The notion of Pedri not being a complete midfielder is quickly going out of the window. In fact, a case can be made for the Canary Islander being the most complete midfielder in the world, as there doesn’t seem to be anything he cannot do.
Pedri controlled the game against Levante, largely alone at midfield, calling the shots at how the game was run. Pedri showed his ball control and dribbling at close range with crisp touches inside and outside the box.
He demonstrated his range of passing with the manner he always seemed to locate the perfect teammates to play the ball to. And at the time that mattered most, the score at 2-0 in favour of Levante, the young player pulled out an absolute rocket that provided hope for Barcelona.
Safe to say, Pedri has been Barcelona’s best signing of the past decade. If he keeps this up, the world is his oyster, and he should keep striking even greater heights. Let’s just see how things go with the Spaniard during the coming months.
3. Deep-block destroyer
You might like him, you might dislike him, but one of the most irrefutable truths of world football is that few, if any, players are more effective playing out of the lines versus the deep block than Dani Olmo.
The attacking midfielder from Spain was not played at the beginning of the game in Valencia but was substituted at half-time and immediately ran the game open. Though he may have done nothing spectacular, coming out enabled other players near him to excel.
Levante had arranged the bus with a 5 and a 4 holding onto each other, which they didn’t give the kind of space that Barcelona would like. The nice part about Olmo is that he doesn’t need all that much room at all to contribute to the game, though.
Specific game situations such as the one versus Levante, Olmo ought to be at the very top of Hansi Flick’s team sheet. That was a very astute substitution by the German boss, and one dare safely suggest that it paid off, handsomely!
