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| Things we learned from Barcelona’s Spanish Super Cup 3-0 win over Sevilla |
Barça secured their first title of the season after beating Sevilla 3-0 in the second leg of the Spanish Super Cup at the Camp Nou to establish a 5-0 aggregate victory and claim their 12th Supercopa honour.
Goals from Arda Turan and Lionel Messi ensured Barça win their first Spanish Super Cup title since 2013, their first in Luis Enrique’s reign as they look to defend their Liga and Copa del Rey honour whilst competing for the UEFA Champions League this season.
The win against Sevilla was a spectacular one, the team was perfect and all players seemed to be in good shape. Here are six lessons from the win.
FIVE THINGS WE LEARNED FROM BARCELONA 3-0 WIN OVER SEVILLA
1. THE TEAM IS READY
Although they didn’t start well and could’ve conceded early on, Barcelona played at a spectacularly high level against Sevilla. Most of the players look sharp and their sharpness can’t even match their eagerness to help the team. All the players are ready to achieve that one goal of the club which is to win all titles they are competing in, even Munir and Arda have both gained extra tonnes of confidence and it looks like it’ll be a good season.
2. SQUAD DEPTH WILL HELP BARÇA A LOT
Barcelona came into the Spanish Super Cup second leg without the likes of Andres Iniesta, Jeremy Mathieu, Marc Andre Ter Stegen through injuries as well as Neymar and Rafinha who are unavailable due to the Olympic games. This didn’t affect Luis Enrique’s team in anyway whatsoever as they played like they had their full squad available. New signing Andre Gomes replaced Iniesta in the lineup and gave a beautiful performance while Lucas Digne was also spectacular at left back in place of Mathieu.
The depth of the squad also meant Luis Enrique will have the chance to rotate his team. With a 2-0 first leg advantage, Lucho saw the need to rest some key players and he left out Luis Suarez, Gerard Pique and Ivan Rakitic out of the starting XI. New signing Samuel Umtiti started in place of Pique and was one of the best players on the pitch. Barça have a lot of options to choose from for the new season and it’s a good thing.
3. BARÇA WILL BE LOSING A GEM IN CLAUDIO BRAVO
The Chilean shot-stopper is on his way out of the club and he showed against Sevilla that Barça will miss him a lot, putting up an inspiring performance. Bravo had two quality saves early on to deny Ben Yedder and also saved a spot kick from Iborra whilst also keeping his second consecutive clean sheet in the Super Cup. Apart from the saves, his professionalism was second to none as he acted without any trace of a hint that he might be joining Manchester City.
Claudio Bravo is a fantastic goalkeeper and it will be very difficult to find someone who will give what he gives in the current market. The club are reportedly after Diego Alves and Jasper Cillessen to replace him.
4. ARDA TURAN IS TEN TIMES BETTER ON THE WING
Arda Turan didn’t have his best season for Barça last season which can be linked to the fact that he didn’t play for six months, however, he just seemed not to be getting it as a central midfielder. The Turkish star has been recently deployed as a left winger on the absence of Neymar and has done well in all three games he’s played there so far this season.
He shined against Sampdoria in the Joan Gamper trophy and also the first leg against Sevilla, but in the second leg, we saw the best ever Arda in a Barça shirt as he delivered his best ever performance since joining. He looks much better on the wing maybe because most times he gets a lot of time to make decisions than he does as a midfielder. Let’s hope to see him there more often this season.
5. LIONEL MESSI STILL RUNS THE SHOW
Messi scored and assisted against Sevilla but judging his performance with these will only lower his standards as he was much better overall. The captain ran the show at the Camp Nou with a dazzling performance and even set three records after the game.
Messi played everywhere in the game, he took over the playmaker role, caused so much problems for the opposition in attack and also helped in defence whilst also showing great leadership on the pitch. The star looks to be ready to break more ankles this season and he can only get better.
