Racing Santander vs Barcelona, Copa del Rey: Final Score 0-2, Barça survive wild away game, advance to quarter-finals

Reactions & Observations

• Racing took advantage of a wonderful home atmosphere and made a strong start, forcing Joan Garcia to make three solid interventions in the first 20 minutes with dangerous counter-attacks. The hosts were also good at the back, with a tight and well-organized 5-3-2 structure that denied spaces and forced Barça to play tons of sideways passes throughout the period.
• The Catalans had to be patient in possession and had a good process in the first two thirds, but the final ball was missing in the entire opening half and the Blaugrana constantly wasted good attacks with bad passes and poor decisions in the final third.
• Lamine Yamal was Barça’s brightest player and made several really good passes to find the runs of Jules Kounde and Dani Olmo on the right side, but their end product was poor and they were unable to finish the many good moves started by the teenager.
• Marc Casadó and Marc Bernal were disappointing as a double pivot, providing very little going forward and misplacing passes that nearly started dangerous counters for Racing.
• Ferran Torres played isolated against three center-backs, and his teammates did very little to provide him with good service.
• Marcus Rashford was really poor with and without the ball, not pressing well enough and getting pretty much every cross and pass wrong in the final third.
• Racing proved to be a tough test as advertised in the opening period, and were helped by a wasteful Barça attack as the first half ended goalless and the game was wide open heading into the second half.
• Barça were more dangerous to start the second half, with Yamal firing two shots on target and creating a great chance for Rashford that led to a good save by the Racing goalkeeper, and the Catalans had better opportunities in the first 10 minutes of the final period than they did in the entire first half.
• Hansi Flick sent on Fermín López for Bernal to take advantage of the momentum shift, and the change worked as Barça started to amp up the pressure even further and forced the Racing defense to make increasingly desperate tackles and clearances to stop the Catalans from scoring.
• Yamal continued to wreak havoc and almost scored an Olimpico from a corner that hit the crossbar, but it was Fermín who finally unlocked the defense with a spectacular through ball to find Ferran, who rounded the keeper and passed the ball into an open net to put Barça in front.
• Flick made three subs immediately after the goal as Pedri, Raphinha and Lewandowski came on to try and kill off the tie, and the momentum was entirely on Barça’s side heading into the final 20 minutes.
• Racing said “screw your momentum”, however, and let go of the shackles completely to try and chase a late equalizer. They almost found it through Lozano twice, but both goals were correctly ruled out for offside.
• Barça did not do a very good job of managing the game at the end and lost the ball way too much, allowing Racing to stay in the game until the very end, and the hosts had a gigantic chance in the 94th minute when Lozano was played through all alone in front of Joan Garcia, who made yet another monster save in a big moment to deny the equalizer.
• And Racing’s hearts were broken a minute later on the counter, as Raphinha found Yamal all alone for a tap-in at the far post to finish off the tie with the last kick of the game.
• This was as tough as advertised and Racing proved why they deserve promotion to La Liga next season, and they did not deserve to lose this one 2-0 without at least scoring a goal. But Barça were the better team on the balance of play, and managed to escape a crazy atmosphere with a win and a spot in the quarter-finals.
• Oh, one more thing: I LOVE YOU, JOAN GARCIA.