Barcelona returned to work on Thursday at six in the afternoon after coach Xavi Hernández granted four days off to his players after the defeat of Athletic Club. It was the third consecutive game in which his pupils scored four goals and in this way Xavi wanted to reward his squad, which awaits a marathon of matches (five in 13 days) that will culminate with the visit of the Blaugrana team to the Santiago Bernabéu on March 20.
The visit to the leader’s fiefdom is the game that is already on the minds of Barça’s technical staff because it is the one that can determine if that wave of optimism that has settled in the culé dressing room has signs of taking a step further.
From the board, Laporta launches euphotic messages in which nothing is given up -not even LaLiga-, on the bench Xavi tries to temper bagpipes saying that we have to go “step by step” that “we do not give up anything, but we know that it’s difficult, first we go for the third, and then we’ll continue” while in the locker room there is a feeling that anything is possible.
Well, the moment of truth arrives in a series of five games (three in LaLiga and two in the Europa League) in which Barça will know perfectly well in what position and with what expectations they face the last ten days of the championship regular, those that Luis Aragonés defined as the true League.
Calendar favorable?
In LaLiga, Barcelona faces an apparently favorable calendar before visiting Chamartín, which from the locker room is expected to have consolidated it in the Champions zone. Barça plays on Sunday against Elche and the following week hosts Osasuna. Taking into account that this next day the team that precedes Barcelona (Betis) will face each other with the one that pursues him (Atlético de Madrid) If Barça does its job at the Martínez Valero and at the Camp Nou, the panorama with a view to entering the first four places can become clearer. And more considering thatand the blaugrana are the only team in the upper zone that has a game pending, against Rayo Vallecano at the Camp Nou, which does not yet have a date. It can only be played when Barça is eliminated from the Europa League or in the week of the Copa del Rey final.
In the middle of this league schedule appears the Europa League tie against Galatasaray, a rival that a priori was one of the most affordable that could be lucky for the Blaugrana team. Barça will start their tie against the Turks at the Camp Nou on Thursday of next week where Xavi’s team will try to gain enough advantage to be able to face the second leg, three days before visiting the Bernabéu, looking to be able to reserve some pieces keys.
And it is that on the horizon, Xavi’s first visit to the white stadium appears as the great test to verify the growth of the new Barça and from there to calibrate with knowledge of the facts the real options of the Blaugrana team.
