Barcelona 0-0 Girona: Barcelona have failed to deal with Girona. The leader of Spain played at a very low pace in large parts of the match on Monday evening and had to settle for a draw.
Barcelona cannot hide the absence of De Jong and Pedri in the derby
Frenkie de Jong was missing from Xavi’s team due to his hamstring injury and Pedri was still absent due to his thigh injury. The creativity of the two was greatly missed in the duel with the number eleven of La Liga. After a lively opening phase, including an opportunity for Robert Lewandowski, Barcelona’s field game seemed to be becoming increasingly difficult.
After more than half an hour, the home team had two good chances to open the score. Raphinha came across the excellent goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga from a difficult angle. In the same phase, the Argentinian goalie was able to prevent Ronald Araújo from scoring with a corner from Barcelona. The VAR checked whether the ball had just crossed the goal line and found that Gazzaniga was just in time with his reflex.
Franck Kessié replaced Sergi Roberto to little effect
Xavi noticed that the midfield was not functioning properly without De Jong and Pedri and tried to provide an impulse at the start of the second half by bringing in Franck Kessié for Sergi Roberto. That didn’t immediately have much effect. Girona was most dangerous in the first fifteen minutes after the break. The fast Taty Castellanos was launched and instead of putting the ball face to face with Marc-André ter Stegen wide on Viktor Tsygankov’s perfectly run, the Argentinian went for his own success. The striker shot wide, to the relief of the more than 70,000 Barcelona supporters at Camp Nou, who hoped their team would take a 15-point lead over Real Madrid.
Despite a final offensive, Barcelona did not manage to take full advantage. As Real Madrid lost against Villarreal. The pressure increased in the last fifteen minutes, but Girona remained upright. For Lewandowski in particular, it was a frustrating evening. The top scorer of La Liga did not get any of his four attempts on goal.
After the disappointing draw against Girona, Barcelona has a thirteen-point lead over Real Madrid with ten rounds to go. Atlético Madrid is 15 points behind.
