Missive from Montjuic - Questions Asked and Answered
What to make of Barça Femení blasting through the most significant stretch of their early season.
Last week, I explored an idea I wrote about last season: what exactly passes for a “high stakes” match for an outfit as relentlessly dominant as Barça Femení?
We can talk about Champions League finals and the knockout rounds that lead into them but there are surely other contests throughout a lengthy campaign that demand more than a mundane shift at Ye Olde Office Park. I contemplated this before the start of this season and concluded that two matches, on November 16 and 19 - the Champions League opener against Benfica and the home league fixture against Real Madrid - were the most likely to not only boost Barça’s heart rate above its resting state but possibly even force them to sweat a bit.
If you squint - I mean really squint - I wasn’t completely off base! At the very least, messages were sent.
On Thursday night at the Johan, the reigning champs kicked off their Champions League defense against a somewhat familiar foe in Benfica, with whom they shared a group last season. It is worth noting that Barça bested Benfica rather emphatically - an aggregate score of 15-2 in fact, including a 9-0 in Catalunya.
Despite that, since the end of their last Champions League campaign (also the end of calendar 2022), Benfica has morphed into “budget Barça,” with 18 wins in 19 league matches, by a combined score of 89-5 (the lone loss was a 1-0 last season against second-placed Sporting) and breezing through four Champions League qualifiers by a combined 23-1 tally.
Though neither the halftime nor final scores reflect it, Benfica did a lot right on Thursday, especially in the first 45 minutes. They were tough, organized, and aggressive. They didn’t back down anywhere on the pitch. They made concerted, in-control efforts to attack. In the wake of a very “Alexia 2.0” opener in the 15th, Benfica battled and not only kept the score at 1-0 but largely held Barça at bay. There was nothing white knuckle about their showing.
That Barça tripled their lead in a span of five minutes just before halftime through Alexia (again) and Aitana will have been a bitter pill to swallow after holding Barça (to that point) to a downright pedestrian four on target, two corners, and one completed cross while putting a pair of legitimate shots on target themselves, mounting 15 “dangerous attacks” to Barça’s 24, and racking up ten successful tackles. They really made Barça work!
That it yielded nothing but a 3-0 deficit is a chilling example of just how little margin for error there is against this Barça team.
I mean, goals from the winners of the last 3 Ballons d’Or…
… with next year’s winner out on the right, and another 10% of the award’s shortlist (Patri, Salma Paralluelo, and Asisat Oshoala) waiting to sub in is nothing short of obscene.
Even in the second half, though they posed less of an attacking threat, Benfica still mounted 16 dangerous attacks and held Barça to just three shots on target and two corners. That they were breached by a piece of Aitana-CGH magic and an Oshoala GOLAZO…
… is simply the occupational hazard inevitability of lining up against this juggernaut.
But make no mistake, Benfica’s women’s team is coming.
Then, on Sunday, came Real Madrid. The side who went toe-to-toe with Barça for the better part of an hour in 2022 on a stage that would swallow most teams whole. And followed that up last season with a 1-1 draw through 90 in the semifinals of the Supercopa de España (Barça won 3-1 in extra time) and an organized, disciplined showing in late March that was only undone by a Fridolina Rolfö 77th-minute penalty. The side that, through eight league matches this season, sat just three points back of Barça and could claim first place with a win.
Beyond all of that, the rivalry between the women’s sides of the “eternal rival” clubs has been heating up, thanks in no small part to Real Madrid’s complete lack of support for Las 15 in their attempts to reform the Spanish federation’s treatment of female players. And, more recently, despite having joined forces with the Barça contingent to bring home the World Cup, a hell of a take from World Cup heroine Olga Carmona.
(A quick aside before we move on: any ribbing here is meant light-heartedly and in no way intended to be insensitive to Carmona’s tragic loss of her father two days before the World Cup final in which she scored the winning goal.)
This meeting marked the second time in 20 months that Barça and Real Madrid locked horns in A big house - this time the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, the Barça men’s team’s home until renovations to Camp Nou are complete. Nothing will ever compare - nor should anything actually be compared - to that magical March 2022 night, but there was something inspiring, energizing, and kindred in spirit in seeing thousands of Blaugrana jerseys, scarves, and flags convergence in the Plaça de Espanya, which sits at the foot of Montjuic, and make the hike up the hill (I fear for winter attendances) to the stadium.
Once the ball got rolling, it seemed that Madrid, buoyed by hopes of first place, a first Clásica win in 12 attempts, a collective disdain for Barça, or some combination thereof, were going to make this a battle. Las Blancas enjoyed a nice opening 16 minutes, in which they stifled Barça’s attack, won three early corners, and generally looked the more threatening side. From that point forward, however, the script flipped on them more viciously than they could have expected.
It didn’t exactly seem like it at the time but Aitana’s beautiful lefty finish into the bottom left in the 17th, just past Real Madrid keeper Misa Rodríguez, served as a starter’s pistol. Sort of.
Anyone only following the score will have seen that 1-0 hang there for nearly half an hour and assumed a competitive tussle. How hilariously wrong one would have been.
Six minutes after her goal, Aitana pinged a shot off the left post; the rebound fell in between a wide-open net and Caroline Graham Hansen, who literally unbelievably put her attempt wide right.
Five minutes later, Salma Paralluelo was released for a 1v1, which she put wide right - admittedly due to excellent positioning by Rodríguez.
In the 36th, Marianna redirected a CGH cross to Patri, who, from an excellent position, had her shot blocked by a defender straight to Rodríguez.
Three minutes after that, CGH thumped a left-footed attempt from the right off the upper left corner of the woodwork.
Two minutes after that, Salma once again found herself in a 1v1, which, once again, was impressively thwarted by Rodríguez.
The rebound from that save again fell to CGH. While the goal wasn't fully unattended this time, she disappointingly sent her shot over the crossbar.
Two minutes after that, in the 43rd, it was Salah, again, this time hammering a shot off the bottom of the crossbar. This rebound also fell to Hansen, who this time made no mistake, stuffing her point-blank effort into the top right. 2-0.
Three minutes later, now in stoppage time, off a Barça corner, Patri, with her back to the box, booted a speculative pass back over her head - the ball found Mariona, who beat Rodríguez to extend the lead to 3-0.
So, yeah, despite the superficial similarities like the score and the timing of the first half goals, this Real Madrid side was no Benfica. Were it not for Barça’s flubs in front of goal, some stellar work by Rodríguez, and the tiniest of margins, 6-0 or 7-0 would have been in play.
Also, though her name is quite prominent above, we must take a moment to recognize the unrelenting greatness of Caroline Graham Hansen. That she dominated the game is no great shock it’s news only when the opposite occurs. With her assist to Aitana, she’s now got eight in seven league and Champions League matches - twice as many as Dikembe Mutombo had in nearly 1,000 minutes in 2005-06. That she’s also got six goals means that she’s averaging a goal or an assist every 41.2 minutes - in other words, she’s worth a 2.2-to-0 lead at kickoff every time out.
Sunday, however, was a masterclass in apex predation. Sure, she had a goal and an assist (duh) but the extent to which she tortured Olga Carmona probably deserves its own term. At the very least Barça should have made a call to Galatasaray about a loan. I mean…
Things somehow got worse, far worse - insultingly, patronizingly worse - for Madrid after the break. In keeping with the script, Salma found herself heads-up with the keeper just 30 seconds into the second half, only to have her shot saved by Rodríguez. After that? Nada. Well, not so much “nada” as the most comprehensive strangulation as you’re likely to see of an ostensible contender.
I’m not saying that Barça actively tried not to score while inflicting maximum demoralization. I am saying that IF they were to try such a thing, this is what it would look like.
You’ll notice above that the highlight immediately following Salma’s close call to open the second half is an Aitana shot from the end line - about 29 minutes later! Again, someone not watching might have assumed that Madrid’s defense buckled down and curbed the Barça attack as it had to start the match. This someone would again be preposterously mistaken.
The vast majority of the second half played out with one player, goalkeeper Cata Coll, within 50 yards of the Blaugrana goal and all ten Barça outfield players within 40 yards of the Madrid net. And while they hunted in packs as they so often do, the objective wasn’t simply to keep the clean sheet but to render Madrid’s attack theoretical.
Where this was most apparent - outside of Madrid’s total dearth of purposeful possession - was on a “nothing play” on which Barça lost possession just outside their own box. Despite Madrid posing zero threat - both in the match and at that moment - and the score 3-0, Mariona ran over for what I’d call “equal parts challenge and body check,” as if to deliver a harsh reminder of what a chore it would be to simply cross midfield, let alone entertain any notion of a comeback. And send a delightful spark through the almost 40,000 in attendance.
Finally, to add insult to more insult, with time winding down and Madridistas desperate to just go home, Barça played one final rendition of “show ‘em what’s what.” First, in the 90th, a deflected Esmee Brugts cross from the right found Vicky López in front of goal. López’s shot went over the bar but opened the door for a stoppage time foray in which Aitana found Clàudia Pina for a slick finish for her fourth career Clásica goal (tying her with Aitana and Lieke Martens for second all-time behind Alexia) just one minute before Ingrid Engen1 (who continues to be excellent at center back) found Vicky, who completed “la manita” and became the youngest-ever scorer in a senior Barça-Real Madrid match.
That Benfica offered both a greater threat and more resistance than Real Madrid in a 5-0 is DAMN SATISFYING. This two-game stretch - objectively the most challenging and significant of the early season - which yielded a businesslike blowout and a complete obliteration of Barca’s stiffest domestic competition is effectively Schroedinger ass-kicking - providing ample fodder to those waiting to bray about “farmers’ leagues,” while also providing plenty for those of us inclined to appreciate the utter ruthlessness and unflappable focus of not just a genuinely great team but an era-defining dynasty for the ages.
Wherever on this spectrum you find yourself, we can all agree that messages were, in fact, sent.
Correction to an earlier version that credited Esmee Brugts with the assist