For the first time in 24 years, Barcelona returned to the Estadio Carlos Tartiere to fulfil a fixture against La Liga new boys, Real Oviedo.
The hosts hadn’t had a good start to their 2025/26 campaign, losing four of their five matches before facing the Catalans and had only scored one goal.
With Barcelona knowing that a win would put them back within two points of leaders Real Madrid ahead of the weekend’s fixtures, the motivation was already there for another attacking performance from Hansi Flick’s
side.
However, Oviedo had won three of the last four meetings between the sides, so complacency wasn’t an option for the Blaugranes.
Let’s take a look at three things which affected the outcome of the match…
Joan Garcia mistake sums up sloppy first half
There can rarely have been a first-half when, collectively, Barcelona couldn’t string a handful of accurate passes together.
Oviedo deserve the plaudits for shutting down their opposite numbers quickly and making them rush, but Barca are better than that. Much better.
On a number of occasions when colleagues were well placed, the visitors weren’t even able to find their target with either a short pass or a more difficult cross-field ball.
Putting their foot on the ball also appeared beyond them and their lack of control was astonishing to watch at times.
The real low point was Joan Garcia’s mistake for the opening goal. He came flying out of his box, took two decent touches, but then passed it straight to the opposition. And the rest, as they say, is history…
Clearly, Barca aren’t always going to get things their own way but they must learn to compete against those teams willing to run through brick walls for each other.
Dani Olmo misses another opportunity to impress
How many more opportunities is Dani Olmo going to be given and how many more is he not going to take?
With Fermin out injured and Frenkie de Jong benched, this was the perfect chance for the Spaniard to impress from the start in that midfield role he plays with aplomb for the national team.
His passes were off, though in fairness so were many of those attempted by his colleagues, and his movement was virtually non-existent at times.
Contrast his demeanour with that of Fermin’s during the games in which be played before the injury. Chalk and cheese.
Where one is constantly on the move, driving forward and unleashing venomous shots, as well as getting stuck in at every opportunity, the other is statuesque and disinterested by comparison.
A shot that flew just over notwithstanding, there was little of note Olmo did right in the opening 45, and so it was to his benefit that Marc Casado had an equally poor first half and was hooked at half-time for de Jong.
Eric to stay at right-back?
One of the few success stories on the night was Eric Garcia’s performance at right-back.
A player that is now beginning to show his true colours after being given a run in the side, he gave balance to the defence and was an excellent supplementary presence in attack as his goal 10 minutes after the break to start the comeback showed.
Could it be that Barca would be better off moving Jules Kounde back to central defence instead of Ronald Araujo, leaving Eric to cement the right-back position of his own?
