Many times there are teams that have very curious statistics that surely help you guess what may happen in the match that is going to be played. Curiously, Las Palmas is one of these teams. For example, before playing against Barcelona, the Canaries had scored 15 goals in 18 matches, a very negative background. So much so that if we did a classification by goals scored they would be classified second to last.
But if we did it based on the goals conceded, they would be classified in second position behind Real Madrid. And at home they had conceded only five goals in eight games. So we can understand that a Barcelona team that was quite ineffective against the opposing team was going to have problems penetrating Álvaro Valles' goal. Barcelona had to give a lot of rhythm to the match to upset a team that has so much defensive security.
And unfortunately, Barcelona spoiled the first half. Where he wandered without establishing the rhythm of the meeting, without wanting to command his destiny. Caught between apathy and the advanced defense established by García Pimienta. The center of the field disappeared and two lines remained looking for offensive actions, defense and attack. Many times the rival defensive system can be as effective as it is risky and that means that it grants some possibility of exploiting that risk. And in these circumstances you can exploit that risk that your rival runs through simple things, which rarely achieve their objective. Or establish a game strategy that generates the ideal habitat to take advantage of those risks. Barcelona did not manage to reach the rival goal due to the slowness of its evolution in a few square meters where excessive players accumulated. And later in the first half, he began to make long passes behind the advanced rival defensive line. But they made the mistake of not generating the habitat they needed, and the pass was often executed from the least effective area and towards the space that had the least chance of evolving. It would have been much better if, before making the pass, the ball had been moved looking for Lewandowski's position to attract the Canary Islands centre-backs towards the media line. Or that on certain occasions one of the midfielders was positioned between the line of midfielders and the Canarian defense line. From that position they could do the task that I mentioned before about the Polish. And once the rival centre-backs were displaced, Barcelona, delaying the ball, could from a winger or a centre-back launch a long cross towards one of the wingers. They made a mistake by not working on the play, throwing vertical balls that are very difficult to control, since the bounce takes you away from the ball and that an advanced goalkeeper like Álvaro Valles had everything to win.
Losing 45 minutes of the game is too much of a risk for a team trying to find itself. As long as that happens, it is clear that they will not be competitive.
