Are Barcelona Suffering from More Than Bad Luck After Malaga Draw?
It seemed the tide had finally turned when Diego Llorente begrudgingly trudged off the pitch.
Barcelona were being held goalless by Malaga, and in the 68th minute came the moment that should have tipped the scales and dropped the points on their side.
Referee Ricardo De Burgos Bengoetxea made a bold and unorthodox decision to dismiss the central defender, on loan from Real Madrid, for his hack on Neymar.
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Most expected him to brandish the yellow card after Llorente strode across the pitch and upended Neymar, who was surging forward. But the card he pulled from his pocket was bright red.
He was not the last man and it was not the type of challenge that most recognise as something that is likely to cause serious injury.
But it was cowardly, ugly and cynical. Sometimes, these type of incidents are described as "orange cards"—somewhere between a yellow and a red.
Usually erring on the side of safety, officials come down on the side of yellow. This time, the referee went for the other option.
It seemed to be the first break Barcelona had recevied for weeks. Not only regarding refereeing decisions, although both Arda Turan and Gerard Pique had been denied penalties that should have been given earlier in the game.
Llorente posted a picture of the tackle on his Instagram account and wrote: "I’m pissed off about leaving the team with 10 after the red card for a foul in which I only wanted to stop the counter with a trip and of course not injure the opponent."
But Barcelona could not capitalise. At last, they began to create some clear-cut chances, ramping up the pressure in the final stages of the game, but it was not enough, and Malaga left Catalonia with a precious point.
"My players were exceptional," explained the Andalusians' coach, Juande Ramos, in his post-match press conference. "We had a lot of players out—important ones too. We had four players from the B team playing. It would have been suicide not to have played how we played."
Malaga utilised a 5-4-1, a hyper-defensive tactic, and they rarely showed much ambition with the ball or even much desire to have possession of it.
Barcelona struggled hugely to break them down, generally only creating half-chances until Llorente was dismissed.
Logic dictates that was down to the ill fortune of having their two most creative players, Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta, out of action.
The latter is in the middle of a long lay-off following a poor Enzo Perez challenge that left him with a knee injury during Barcelona's 3-2 win at Valencia on October 22. The former was going to play, but little over an hour before kick-off, he pulled out of the squad because he was feeling ill.
Although no link has yet been made, it could be something to do with the sickness he felt in midweek. Per Sport, he was throwing up on a turbulent flight to San Juan in his homeland ahead of Argentina's 3-0 win over Colombia.
Even though the Messi news was unexpected, Ramos had seen how fellow southern side Granada had nearly emerged with a good result against Barcelona a few weeks earlier.
Without master lock-picker Iniesta, sitting deep and parking the bus is as viable a tactic for Barca's opponents as it was when Pep Guardiola was in charge.
Generally under Luis Enrique, it makes more sense to try and catch Barcelona out with a high press, as Celta Vigo showed at Balaidos. Going end-to-end with them more often than not results in defeat because of the quality of the MSN trident, but it makes more sense than purely defending.
But until Iniesta returns, while Luis Suarez tries to find his best form—and he was suspended against Malaga anyway—playing extremely cautiously has its merits.
These injury problems are another part of the bad luck dogging Barcelona, although Pique and Jordi Alba both returned after they went off injured against Manchester City on October 19.
Barcelona have had no luck with Paco Alcacer, either. The fourth striker was brought in for €30 million with the express purpose of providing the goals when Suarez is out.
He has yet to find the net, and the performance he put in against Malaga was his most disappointing to date. Between the 10th and 41st minutes of the first half, he did not touch the ball, according to Carles Domenech of LaTdP (h/t Sport).
Not touching the ball for 31 minutes is bad enough, but doing that while playing up front for Barcelona at the Camp Nou is appalling.
The truth is centre-back Pique looked much more of a threat when playing in attacking areas than Alcacer did. So too did Barcelona, with the big man causing trouble in the box.
That is not a particularly palatable fact for Barcelona fans, who pride themselves on their team’s oft-brilliant play. But needs must, and like against Celta Vigo, when he scored twice, Pique’s presence in the opposition area was a big factor in making them a lot more dangerous.
"Paco was as good as the rest of my players," Luis Enrique said in his press conference, faintly ridiculously. "There’s no Coca-Cola formula here. For a player to score goals, he need minutes I'm happy with him, and I hope he keeps improving. But to hope for anything else is illogical. I’m delighted with Paco and with the team.”
This game cannot be taken in isolation, though. It is the latest in a series of matches in which Barcelona have been below their best.
And underlying the different elements of bad luck, you could point to bad decisions—or at least decisions that may have been made in good faith but aren't working out.
Suarez was suspended for this game because he picked up a seemingly deliberate yellow card against Sevilla to make sure he could play against Real Sociedad and Real Madrid in the coming matches.
International breaks are bad for Barcelona because their vaunted forward line mainly travels to South America. That may seem like bad luck, but it's also bad planning to some extent.
Obviously, being high-quality players, Messi, Suarez and Neymar are always going to be called up by their countries, something Barcelona knew when they brought the MSN together. Real Madrid's BBC attack, meanwhile, stays in Europe during the breaks.
Then there is the problem of Alcacer, a player some said was not the sort of striker Barcelona needed, an expensive solution to a problem Munir El Haddadi already seemed a good answer to.
As Juan Manuel Diaz explained in Sport, this is Barcelona’s worst start in La Liga for a decade.
Some mistakes have been made—by individual players, perhaps by the coach too—but those have been compounded with misfortune, complementary ingredients for a cocktail of nerves that Real Madrid’s 3-0 win over Atletico stirred.
Barcelona are, however, just four points behind leaders Real. That makes the coming matches crucial, bad luck or not.
Win their next two games, and talk of bad luck and bad performances will fade away.
Rik Sharma is Bleacher Report's lead Barcelona correspondent. All information and quotes obtained firsthand unless specified. Follow him on Twitter here: @riksharma_.
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