Barcelona played postponed EL-Clasico with Real Madrid on Wednesday at Camp Nou. The expectations were high as always. The El-Clasico is viewed by 650M fans around the globe. The match was postponed due to political issues in Barcelona due to which players’ safety was a concern.
Before the match, security was a big question as a number of fans were going to protest outside and inside the stadium. But the match started without any issue. Although there was a small protest in between match. But it didn’t create any problem. The match although ended goalless which wasn’t expected.
Real Madrid dominated most of the match at Camp Nou against the arch-rival Barcelona. Barcelona had a good spell of play in the match but couldn’t dominate the game, especially in the midfield area.
This raised question amongst supporters as in the starting line-up Sergio Busquets was named in the starting line-up but later was replaced by Rakitic before the start of the game. Sergio has his critics this season as the 32-old-year player has gone through a rough form.
Valverde admitted while speaking to Goal that illness was the reason to drop Busquets but also explained that he was in his substitution plans.
“It is true that Busquets was feeling bad, he had a fever before the game,” Valverde said. “We thought we could have used him in the second half but not in the end. The coach makes the decision based on what he sees.”
However, just before the game the assistant manager Jon Aspiazu revealed while speaking to Daily Mail that Busquets was never going to start the game due to illness and he further called the choice as a mistake.
“It was a misunderstanding at the moment of communicating the team news,” he said. “He is okay and that’s why he is on the bench.”
AS goes on to suggest and explained that the whole situation which was Barcelona’s plan. It was suggested as the strategy used by Valverde for the match.
It has also been reported that Sergio Busquets had to inform Valverde himself about his illness and weakness. After that Valverde replaced him with Rakitic just before kick-off.
Barcelona just didn’t want Real Madrid to know about Busquet’s illness before the match but it’s reported that he himself told some of his Spanish teammates who play for Real Madrid before the match about his illness.
Barcelona then had to admit that Busquets is ill and had to make the change. But the explanation of the Manager and the assistant manager has raised the question.
Barcelona midfield looked shaky in the match and except De Jong, no one was able to provide balls to the trio upfront. Messi himself dropped in midfield so as to create balls upfront for Suarez and Griezmann.
