FC Barcelona 0-1 Leganés: Lost opportunity

Against a side that they had never lost to at home and who had not won a single game away from home this season, today’s fixture looked like an ideal chance to get FC Barcelona’s Liga season back on track, especially after the morale boosting win in Dortmund midweek and the fact that Real Madrid had slipped up against Rayo Vallecano the night before.

But instead, Leganés picked up a victory that surely nobody predicted at the Estadi Olimpic. It’s the second time in a row that Barça have lost at home to a team they would normally beat with relative ease and it means the team has now collected just five of the last eighteen points on offer.

Thanks to their stratospheric form earlier in the season, Barça still top La Liga, but now only only goal difference ahead of Atlético Madrid, who have a game in hand.

The same Atlético Madrid that will coming to Barcelona next Saturday. That was always going to be a big game. Now it’s bigger than ever.

Early setback

But back to this Sunday. And things started going wrong from the very start. Iñaki Peña had already been tested by former blaugrana Munir before he was beaten after just four minutes. Sergio González rose to meet the corner that followed and headed Leganés into a thoroughly unexpected lead.

It wasn’t the start to the game that anybody had wanted, but there were still 86 minutes of football to be played. Plenty of time for goals. The tonight, they never came.

Dmitrovic frustrates the reaction

Barça needed to regroup quickly and they did. It was far from their best football this season but the chances were flowing thick and fast. But a new problem emerged. Marko Dmitrovic.

The Serbian goalkeeper made three saves at point-blank range in the first half. Two of those denied Robert Lewandowski the kind of opportunities he normally confidently tucks away. And the one against Raphinha was simply extraordinary.

Leganés’ primary intention was to defend their one-goal advantage. One could even say it was their only intention. But they were doing a worryingly good job of it and getting more and comfortable as the minutes wore by.

Barça couldn’t find spaces, and even when they did manage to find a killer pass, the finishing was off. This was not going to plan at all.

To make matters worse, Lamine Yamal looked to be feeling some discomfort in his ankle. He battled on but wasn’t his usual self and was eventually taken off.

No way through

And still Barça pressed, and still Leganés stood strong, hoofing every won ball back up the park and taking practically zero interest in following it. There was nothing pretty about their football. But annoyingly, it was working.

The last thirty minutes or so were an utter monologue of Barça buzzing around the Leganés half looking for a breakthrough. Cross after cross failed to find the man, pass after pass was intercepted, and other than one effort from Jules Kounde that skimmed tantalizingly wide, none of the many shots ever really looked like going in.

It was a hard watch. And although we have seen so many dramatic late comebacks from Barça in recent years, this was not going to be one of them. As the minutes ticked by, Barça used up everything they had left in the tank to at least salvage a point. In the end, not even that. In a peculiar season of ups and down, this was one of the downs.

What’s done is done. All Barça can do now is pick themselves up from this defeat and start building towards Atlético Madrid next week. That’s a 9pm CET start on Saturday.