FC Barcelona and Xavi were able to get all three points in their last La Liga match against Las Palmas after having gone down early in the first half. A former Barcelona player, Munir Al-Hadadi, scored to put Las Palmas ahead, but strikes from Ferran Torres and Ilkay Gundogan overturned the score to give Barcelona the victory.
The last goal from Gundogan was scored in injury time and came from a penalty that was won by the German himself. With this victory, Barcelona end matchday 19 in third place, trailing Real Madrid and Girona by seven points.
As Mundo Deportivo has reported, Xavi spoke to the media after the match and analysed the performance of his team in this game. He was clearly happy with the victory, and valued the team’s work:
“The team played to win and is a fair winner against a team that nobody has turned the game around against in this league.”
Barcelona had gone down a goal in the first half, but were able to make a comeback in the second half, and Xavi assessed how the team differed in its approach in these two periods:
“We’ve done analytical exercises all week to attack spaces against such an advanced defense like Las Palmas, but in the first half, we rushed and made too many horizontal passes, except for a very good one from De Jong to Sergi Roberto.
The halftime talk was brief; I asked for calmness because I wanted us to be patient, find the right moment, and make diagonal passes. That’s what we improved. I told them at halftime that we were going to win 1-3. It was about quality in the final pass. That talent was missing.”
Xavi was not too amused by the pessimistic tone of some of the journalists asking questions about the team’s performance, and mentioned how other teams fighting for the league had also found it hard to get the three points:
“Everyone struggles to win, games are decided by details. Girona wins in the last second, Madrid in the 80th minute with a corner, and we won with a penalty in the 90th. We do have arguments to win the league. Respect to the defending champion.”
“It’s absurd to ask if the league would have been more difficult if we hadn’t won. Of course, it would have been. But we did win. Then the question is absurd, and you don’t ask it to other coaches.”
The Barcelona head-coach identified the lack of a good last pass as one of the team’s main deficiencies in the first half:
“Everyone has been working since day one, and everyone can play. The attitude has been good. In the first half, we lacked the game, or more specifically, the final pass. Overall, I’m satisfied.”
The new Barcelona arrival, Vitor Roque, made his Barcelona debut in this game. Xavi talked about him and some other attacking players in this media talk:
“He’s going to give us a lot. He does very well in depth. Specifically, the substitution of Lewandowski was because we needed players who could move with speed, like Vitor, Lamine, Fermín, Joao Félix… I think we made the right changes. We saw a Barça that wants to win. Another goal from Ferran? He’s a guarantee, just like everyone else.”
Lastly, Xavi also had a positive update on Joao Cancelo’s injury situation:
“It doesn’t seem serious, it’s the knee, but we’ll wait for the tests.”
