Slavia Prague vs Barcelona, Champions League: Final Score 2-4, Barça escape with crucial win on the road

Barcelona will finish Matchday 7 in ninth place in the Champions League standings and have a realistic shot at clinching a Top 8 finish in the league phase thanks to a hard-fought 4-2 win away to Slavia Prague in the Czech capital on Wednesday night. After a very poor first half performance the Blaugrana were much better in the final period and secured the game-winning goals thanks to inspired cameos by their substitutes, and Barça will go into the league phase finale against Copenhagen at home next week with a solid chance to book a guaranteed spot in the Round of 16.

Reactions & Observations

• Barça’s first half performance was, in a word, dreadful. Slavia came out the more aggressive and desperate team and scored a somewhat ugly set piece goal in the 10th minute as Kusej got ahead of Frenkie de Jong at the far post after a corner and somehow found a way to put the ball over the line, and the home team was off to a dream start.
• The underdog hosts naturally dropped into a low block and gave Barça the ball, and that’s when the problems started: Barça were slow, unimaginative and extremely poor in possession, missing easy passes in the final third and not creating any danger.
• There was only one good attacking move in the entire half from Barça and it resulted in the equalizer, as Eric Garcia, Raphinha and De Jong produced a fantastic passing sequence through the middle and Fermín fired a rocket past the goalkeeper.
• Fermín then gave Barça the lead with five minutes to go in the period with a gorgeous shot from outside the box, and it seemed as though the Catalans would go into the break with the lead. But the Blaugrana conceded again from a corner, and this was even uglier as Robert Lewandowski scored a terrible own goal with his shoulder to make the score 2-2.
• The game was all square at halftime, but make no mistake about it: this was not a good watch at all, with very little quality and a performance from Barça that could have easily been characterized as pathetic if not for the beautiful buildup to the first goal and Fermín’s individual magic for the second. A whole lot of improvement was needed if the Catalans wanted to secure the win in the second half.
• Barça played better to start the second half thanks in large part to De Jong, who dragged his team forward almost by himself with his ball carrying and progressive passing, and he had the ball in the back of the net for a second before the goal was disallowed for a very, very, very tight offside against Lewandowski in the buildup.
• The Catalans were starting to build some momentum, but a scary scene took place at the hour mark as Pedri went down holding his right hamstring and was quickly substituted, and Hansi Flick’s reaction when the doctors informed him of the injury on the sideline was all you needed to see to know this is a bad one. Get well soon, Wizard 🙁
• Pedri’s replacement was Dani Olmo, who needed just two minutes on the pitch and a couple of touches to change the game completely as he scored a truly spectacular goal from outside the box to put Barça in front in amazing fashion. Seriously, that was a sensational strike.
• The other substitute who came on along with Olmo was Marcus Rashford, and the Englishman played a big part in Barça’s fourth goal with a fantastic run in behind the defense and a cross for Lewandowski, who controlled a difficult ball and tapped it in before the keeper could get to it to finally give Barça some breathing room on the night.
• Barça did a really good job of managing the end of the game and not allowing Slavia a chance to score a third and hurt Barça’s precious goal differential, and the final whistle came to seal a very important victory.
• The second half performance was good but the overall showing wasn’t, but the three points and the two-goal boost to their differential will have a big impact on their ability to finish in the Top 8 next week and are the main takeaways from a hard-fought win in Prague.

Source: barcablaugranes.com