Barcelona Are Very Good At Football Example #3134352
Barcelona went into Wednesday night’s Copa del Rey quarter-final second leg against Sevilla trailing by two goals after a disastrous first leg at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan Stadium.
Ernesto Valverde’s side had been flat in that first leg and fans were rightly concerned about elimination. These concerns were legitimate – Barca were poor in the first leg – but after 55 minutes in the return leg they seemed ridiculous.
Barca had levelled the tie half an hour into the match, through Philippe Coutinho and Ivan Rakitic, before a second Coutinho goal and Sergi Roberto strike a minute later put them close to out of sight.
Luis Suarez looked to have rounded off the victory just before the 90 minute mark, but it turned out that there was one more moment and it was well worth waiting for.
This moment begins with Lionel Messi, who sent a long pass out to the left wing to the oncoming Arturo Vidal. The Chilean midfielder squares it first time to Philippe Coutinho, who played a quick one-two with Gerard Pique.
The Brazilian then played a low ball across the front of the six yard box. It comes to Jordi Alba, who briefly seems to consider taking a shot before presumably realising that assists for Lionel Messi are his lifeblood.
So he backheels it to the Argentine magician, who could have hit it first time but decides that a little fake shot would cap proceedings off. So he fake shoots, then actually shoots, all while Alba looks on adoringly.
It was beautiful, so for the love of God just watch it.
Sometimes Barcelona’s excellence almost becomes mundane, and then they go and score a goal like this. https://t.co/LVhDAvjVLF
— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE) January 30, 2019
