Despite seeing Lionel Messi fail to make a meaningful direct contribution to his team’s latest victory, Barcelona boss Ernesto Valverde believes the Argentine star still played a significant part in their success.
Messi was closely man-marked by Girona midfielder Pablo Maffeo throughout the Catalan derby meeting on Saturday night, which Barca won 3-0 thanks to a pair of own goals and a strike from Luis Suarez.
Opposing boss Pablo Machin admitted he effectively sacrificed Maffeo in an attempt to take Messi out of the game, saying he wanted to “make it nine against nine.”
And although Maffeo remarkably only had nine touches of the ball, Girona’s attempts to stifle Barca’s chief inspiration largely succeeded as Messi failed to register a goal or an assist for the first time this season.
But Valverde believed Girona’s tactics backfired on them by giving space for other players to exploit, with Aleix Vidal, Sergi Roberto and Jordi Alba particularly benefitting from the opportunity to raid down the flanks and creating the three goals.
“Messi being man marked is something that can happen,” he shrugged. “But it’s also certain that it will create openings for us to take advantage of.
“Messi came to speak to me after ten minutes to ask me where I wanted him to leave the man who was marking him. He was calm and continued to help the team.”
Another player to profit from the attention paid to Messi was Luis Suarez, who returned to the starting line-up after being left out of the midweek victory over Eibar and capped probably his best performance of the season with the third goal.
By that time the game was already dead and buried but Suarez’s fist-pumping celebration showed he was relieved to get on target after a poor series of performances, not helped by an injury which forced him to miss the start of the season.
Valverde is naturally hoping that Suarez’s goal this weekend will spark the Uruguayan into consistently producing his best form, and believes the front man will benefit from getting onto the scoresheet.
“A striker lives for goals,” he said. “And it’s obvious that the relationship Luis has with the goal is marvellous for us.
“His aggression inside the penalty box is impressive, and it’s just a shame he didn’t score again to gain another deposit of confidence.”
With their sixth consecutive league victory, Valverde is now closing in on the best ever start to a campaign made by any Barca manager, the eight-game winning run of Tata Martino in 2013.
But he is focussing on the day to day, and was pleased to see his team overcome their derby date, concluding: “We played with our heads and also with our hearts.”
