Despite all the star signings, Barcelona still haven’t addressed perhaps the biggest gap.
In Milan, it silences skeptical “fillers of the void”, and in Paris, the star-studded clash lies and grows more or less as the curtain opens.
Here are Makoto Asahara’s top three ideas for the 2022/2023 season.
Barcelona’s position needs to be strengthened
They’ve got (almost) all of the new premiere acquisitions in the end. In the last second, Barcelona managed to include Robert Lewandowski, Ravenha, Frank Kessie and Andreas Christensen and extended his contract, Ousmane Dembele, in the opening match of the league at home against Rayo Vallecano.
In short, everything was prepared for the premiere party at the Camp Nou.
The score was 0-0 and without goals.
Having said that, there is no reason yet to call the mega-project a fiasco or begin to cast doubt on the incredibly well-equipped attack. Because Robert Lewandowski will score his goals. Rafinha and Ousmane Dembele will dribble the defenders. And Ansu Fati will give Xavi a big headache when he has to pick the three who will actually start at the front (because he’s so good).
However, the goalless encounter highlighted a gap that Barcelona, believe it or not, failed to address during a lavish summer to say the least.
Because they do not have a pure right-back.
Serginio d’Este wasn’t even on the team (reasonableness is debatable). Dani Alves was released to Mexico (the plausibility of this is also debatable). Sergi Roberto is now a blonde and still not a good enough right-back for Barcelona’s current ambitions. Ronald Araujo is such a skilled and interesting center back that it’s a loss to play as a right-back.
It’s undoubtedly clear that they need that self-styled right wing wing that has yet to score in this summer window. Not only for their defense, but perhaps above all to give a much-needed extra dimension to the attack. It could have been Cesar Azpilicueta, but he didn’t when he chose to stay at Chelsea instead.
At the same time, they’re clearly chasing one last great signature before closing the window.
Well, Bernardo Silva would have been a very impressive signing and probably the best signing yet out of all the eye-catching signings. And I can, believe it or not, see the logic in turning Frenkie de Jong into Bernardo Silva even for purely mathematical reasons.
But regardless, it’s baffling that despite all the financial clout and billions spent, they still haven’t addressed one of their most troubling gaps.
Shut up Rebek and Abraham the skeptics
Being the league champions, Milan’s side in the opening match against Udinese felt weak on paper. Sandro Tonali was missing. Ante Rebic, who scored two goals in total during last year’s season on his resume, started as a central striker.
And when Udinese scored less than two minutes into the season, the fears seemed justified.
But soon one has to open one’s thoughts. And that through players silenced the skeptics, including the undersigned.
There is no doubt that Ante Rebic was a useful member of the squad during his years at Milan. At the same time, he felt like a more important part of Milan fighting for European places than Milan fighting for league titles.
Now perhaps one shouldn’t make a huge difference from two full blows against Udinese at the premiere of the league. But two hits are still two hits.
Ante Rebic got a rather surprising chance ahead of names like Olivier Giroud and Divock Origi. I really took it. He will continue to be a useful member of the squad for the rest of the season as well.
Another player who has already taken his chance is Brahim Diaz.
There is no doubt that the Spanish attacking midfielder has incredibly impressive feet and incredible talent. At the same time, he has at times felt like a pup too small and uneven to truly carry the important role of number ten in a team with ambitions of AC Milan, at least in the opinion of the site below.
The goal, the assist and the superb effort in other respects also speak volumes that Brahim Diaz did not intend to politely step aside for potential new acquisitions wanting to place his attacking originator in the beginning. If nothing else, it was a dream to start the season for the still-promising Spaniard.
He talks about another Milan player who showed his worth in the 4-2 win over the San Siro.
Ismael Bennacer must have lost his spot initially during last year’s Scudetto season. But don’t be surprised if he keeps him this season, or more or less whatever Milan manage to bring before the transfer deadline.
Because, too, he had a perfect start to his season.
Perez gets water at Mbappe’s mill
Paris Saint-Germain defeated Clermont Foote and Montpellier and tied 10-2 on goal difference after two games.
Neymar is reborn and looks very fit and has scored 3+3 in two games. Lionel Messi (2+1) looked incredibly eager to play and seemed happy too.
Kylian Mbappe? He also opened the scoring, but missed a penalty in his first game of the season on Saturday. But above all, it seems, now, that we are already starting to make a big difference between the giant stars at the top of the PSG pyramid – already in the second round.
Pictures When PSG’s highest-paid and number one player Lionel Messi gets into the protracted argument with Neymar over who should take the second penalty kick against Montpellier (spoiler alert, Neymar took it and scored) it’s one thing.
On the other hand, the viral images of offensive “running”, or rather the lack of a race, is what makes one think a lot about how things are going in the French capital and in the head of one of the greatest footballers.
– He is a competitive person and takes time to regain one hundred percent of his position, coach Christoph Galtier told Canal Plus after the match, without wanting to respond too much to Mbappe’s apparent disappointment with Messi’s pass in his place.
“Who scores the penalties in Paris Saint-Germain is not the problem. The problem is that the player is asking the management to sell another player (with the belief that the latter is not aware of it). As simple as that”, write it French journalist Romain Molina on Twitter regarding the Paris Saint-Germain conflict.
And he has a point. It’s not a surprising point either.
Because who would have thought that there would be no controversy when a world star asks the club’s management to sell his lesser known colleague?
Something that was reported from reliable French sources all summer.
Certainly there was a lot of bitterness in Madrid president Florentino Perez’s statement that Mbappe was no longer the same.
But of course Perez’s analysis of the 23-year-old is over over the weekend.
