Since Barcelona beat Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu, Hansi Flick’s team has begun to show two faces. On the one hand, a team with character and daring has emerged, sometimes perfect in attack and almost always intense in pressure. A team built from Pedri’s football, Raphinha’s vertigo, Lewandowski’s opportunism and Lamine Yamal’s talent. However, Barça has also shown fragility in defense and inconsistency in its game. These two faces were evident in Lisbon. But this time, against Benfica, the coin fell on Barcelona’s side, thanks in large part to Lewandowski’s goals, Raphinha’s drive and Pedri’s magic.
“I think I’m in the best moment of my career,” celebrated Raphinha, chosen MVP of the match at the Estadio da Luz, a protagonist both on the field and in the locker room tunnel. “I am a person who respects everyone. When I left the field, there were people who were insulting me. I know it’s not right, but I responded to them,” explained the Brazilian striker about the brawl between Barcelona and Benfica players that ended with the intervention of the police. “I respect if they respect me, but I don’t keep quiet if they insult me. “It’s normal after an end to the game like that,” he concluded. Neither Eric García nor Hansi Flick wanted to comment on what happened on the way to the dressing room.
The German coach, in any case, did analyze the two versions of his team in Lisbon. “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a comeback like that. “It’s incredible,” he warned. It is the first time in the Champions League that Barça wins a match in which they lost by two goals: 2-4. “We didn’t play that well in the first half. They are very good in transitions and that’s how they scored that first goal for us. They made us defend very deep: we were not in the right position. In the second half, we were better. The changes helped us a lot in the comeback,” Flick concluded. Lewandowski went deeper: “We have to be better in defense. We need more calm and experience at certain times. This victory is very important for us. We have to play with more patience and control.”
Raphinha, for his part, added: “We knew it would be a pretty difficult match. I know the difficulty of playing here, in front of your fans. They know how to play very well and have very high level players. We didn’t let ourselves fall at 3-1. We returned focused on what we did to try to change the game. It was a spectacular match for everyone. Benfica or us could very well have won, but we took it.” The Brazilian has eight goals and two assists in the Champions League, a symbol of Barça’s scoring power in Europe: 26 goals in the last six games. “We knew that we came with the objective of qualifying. We hope to be directly classified in the next round,” said Eric García, another of the scorers of the crazy night in Lisbon.
Barcelona maintains second position in the Champions League phase and is virtually guaranteed a ticket to the round of 16. That is, it would avoid playing in the play-off that will be played by the teams that finish between ninth and twenty-fourth position. “It is very important not to play in the play-off. Two more games in February is very difficult. It is key to have two long weeks and be able to train the things that we normally cannot,” concluded Lewandowski.
