"Real Sociedad can be the first team to beat Barcelona". That was Sociedad's young striker Antoine Griezmann's comment before yesterday's game. Little did I know he would be right. Real Sociedad could and did win FC Barcelona for the first time in La Liga this season. It's three points lost, nothing more nothing less, but it still stings a little. Despite the defeat FC Barcelona still sits rather comfortably on the top of La Liga with a 9 point lead ahead of Atletico Madrid. And even though Atletico Madrid will surely try to narrow that gap to 6 points tonight against Levante, Barca still has a nice lead.
What worries me the most is what Barca's playing looked like yesterday. And I don't mean that Real Sociedad won, because Barca played poorly. Sociedad was great and definitely deserved to win, but Barca wasn't what they could've and should've been. The defense was quite poor. Gerard Pique was basically asleep and got two idiotic warnings that turned into a red card. Wether the stupid red card was an overreaction from the judge or not, no one can deny that Pique shouldn't have put himself to that situation in the first place. The rest of the defense was quite bad as well and Victor Valdes... Once again Victor Valdes. I love him, but sometimes it's like he doesn't exist, like Barca doesn't have a goalkeeper at all and as a fan that's quite frustrating to watch.
After the announcement last week that Valdes wasn't going to renew his contract made me wonder. What if it wasn't Valdes' decision but FC Barcelona's and they just made it look like it was his so that it would be nicer for him in the media. Maybe it's a bit of a conspiracy theory, but in my head it totally makes sense. He hasn't lived up to the expectations in years, if ever and I've always wondered how long he'll be allowed to keep playing like that. And it's not that he isn't good enough, but I think that often on the field he's somewhat arrogant and lazy and doesn't work hard enough. Anyway, I hope that Valdes' departure will be a good thing both for him and the club.
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