In the early morning of February 25, the second leg of the Europa League knockout play-off continued, and La Liga giants Barca defeated Napoli 4-2 away and advanced to the round of 16, showing strong competitiveness.
Napoli have scored 54 points in 26 Serie A rounds this season, on a par with defending champions Inter Milan, just one point away from the leader AC Milan, and conceding the fewest in Serie A with 18 goals. In the first leg against Barca, Napoli also scored only one penalty in 21 shots with excellent defense, and retreated 1-1. So this time back at home, the third of Serie A still has some ideas, determined to play Barca back to the original shape, as a result, Barça is really beaten back to the original shape of 10 years ago. At that time, their name was Dream Three.
In the opening 13 minutes, Barca gave Napoli two heavy punches, and the home team managed to pull back a point with Insigne's penalty, and Pique's goal once again extended the score to 3-1. Trarre's assists, De Jong's full moon curved knife and Pique's goal are all impressive, and it is worth mentioning that Pique became the oldest goalscorer in Barca's European history at 35 years and 22 days after scoring in this game.
In the second half, Traore scored an assist twice, and Aubameyang scored easily to help Barca take a 4-1 lead. Napoli only saved a bit of face with Politano's goal before the end of the game. In this campaign, Barca had 56% of the ball, scoring 4 goals on 6 of 16 shots. Home team Napoli, with just seven shots on goal, three of which were on target, were in a completely suppressed situation. The 4-2 score also made Barca the second team in history to score four goals away from Napoli in Europe, the last being Manchester City, managed by Guardiola, when they beat Napoli 4-2 away from home in the 2017/18 Champions League group stage.
What is more worth mentioning is naturally the outstanding performance of several new signings introduced by Barca in the winter window. In this campaign, Traore scored twice with an assist, while Aubameyang and Ferrantores scored assists each. According to statistics, Traore, Aubameyang, Ferrantore and Alves have combined to cut a stunning stat of 7 goals and 9 assists after joining, and in addition to Ferrantore spent 65 million euros on Barca, Aubameyang and Alves are free to join, Traore is on loan, and all 3 are holding very low salaries. To describe it as a good price feels a bit too careless.
In an interview after the game, Barça boss Xavi said it was the team's most complete performance to date and that Barca were on the right path. And the veteran Pique also said that Barca are returning to their roots, and everyone is responsible for the previous loss, but he does not want to blame anyone for this.
Barca last lost on 21 January this year, when they lost 3-2 away to Athletic Bilbao and missed the copa del Rey quarter-finals. The last time they lost in a 90-minute regular season was in the Champions League group stage on December 9 last year, when Barca lost 3-0 to Bayern and had to play in the Europa League.
Under Xavi's leadership, Barca have once again shown a strong upward momentum through targeted reinforcements in the winter window. Not only did the Europa League qualify, but La Liga also returned to the top four, nine points behind second-placed Sevilla with one less game. There are still 13 rounds of youth training in the league, and this gap is not insurmountable. And that also reminds rijkaard of his first season in charge of Barca, when Barca won just six of their first 18 rounds and fell out of the top eight at one point. But after bringing in Dutch star Davis in the winter window, Barca rebounded strongly to finally finish runners-up in La Liga, and after that, officially opened the Dream II era. At that time, Harvey was still a fledgling young man.
Compared with Barca, who had Ronaldo at that time, the Red and Blue Corps led by Xavi is still a lot worse in terms of player quality. But they are also, as Harvey says, on the right path. The data shows that after Xavi took office, it was also 12 La Liga matches, and Barca won 7, drew 4 and lost 1, scoring 25 points. The team's scoring rate has increased significantly. The average number of points earned per game increased from 1.4 to 2.1 points. This season, although the momentum of Barca is unlikely to compete for the title, Xavi led the team to complete the surpassing of several other teams in front of him, and it is not a luxury to replicate the miracle of the mentor. In the coming year, if a Haaland-level power star is signed, Barca's revival is just around the corner.