The azulgrana team has been unable to win in the only three games in which the Polish striker has not scored

• Chronicle Europe is a torment for Barcelona
• reactions Xavi: “I’m outraged. We don’t understand anything”

Tuesday morning, joan laporta he was a laughing president. Accompanied by his inseparable chief of staff, Tomorrow Giorgadze, walked in a T-shirt, carefree and with a broad smile through the Piazza del Duomo in Milan. His Barcelona came from assaulting the leadership of the League after two years, and Inter de simone zaghiof poor performance in Serie A and without the injured Lukaku, must be an accessible rival. Laporta and the gang that accompanies him everywhere were hoping that his team’s luck would finally change in Europe.

Hours later, frustration and indignation took everything away. Barça fell to Inter (1-0) after a bad game and a tactical mistake in the first half. But he also saw how the referee of the match, the Slovakian Slavko Vincićdisallowed a goal pedri by previous hand of a Ansu Fati who jumped without looking, to end up avoiding the judge a clear hand of dummies in the area without the VAR having anything to say. The Barcelona board did not want to go to sleep without assessing, with little conviction, a formal complaint without a route.

The refereeing tumult, which registered the one suffered in the historic elimination against Inter de Mourinho in 2010 with the Portuguese Olegrio Benquerena as the protagonist, leaves in the background some of the problems that lie in wait for this Barcelona. Hardships that the team does not pay in the League, but that prevent it from being a reliable team every time it sets foot in Europe. And nothing conditions Xavi Hernndez’s team as much as the absence of alternatives when Lewandowski does not have the day The Polish striker, locked up in the San Siro between Inter’s three central defenders, only touched the ball 30 times in the 90 minutes of play. He shot once on goal -without danger-, and he saw how his teammates were more concerned with centering balls that he could never reach than with looking for their own lives.

Barça have not won any of the only three games in which Lewandowski has not scored (the draw against Rayo, and the defeats against Bayern and Inter). This evidences the low scoring productivity of both his attacking partners -normally Dembl Y raphinha-, as of the interiors (Pedri and Gavi, a goal between the two). Xavi, in fact, complained at dawn in Milan that he had asked his players to try shots from a distance against the Italians’ collapsed defence. Nobody paid attention to him.

Trust luck to Dembl

Although the Barcelona coach, who had to correct himself after the 3-4-3 with which he opened the night did not work –Marcos Alonso he was not clear as a left-winger and raphinha barely intervened playing inside-, he also paid for the decision to entrust the fate of the team to dembl. The French winger, no matter how much he ended up throwing a ball at the post and being the one who centered the ball that ended with Pedri’s disallowed goal, lost the ball 38 times. It’s just a number. Perhaps the desperation that he provoked among his companions in the face of each badly finished action was worse.

Dembl, despite the prominence acquired this season given the blind trust that Xavi has in him, has scored two goals in these first ten games of the season. None in Champions. Below him is even Raphinha, magnificent in the last foray with the Brazilian team, but at Barça he has only been able to see the net once in nine appearances (his goal at Pizjun). Ferran Torres, substitute in the first two Champions League games, did not even wear his boots in Milan (he has scored a goal in eight games). He has two in ten duels Ansu Fati, protagonist in the two controversial actions of San Siro. While memphisnow injured, he has scored a goal in three games.

The shadow of the sale of aubameyang in the past summer market, forced by the need to register the reinforcements, it is elongated. And the Champions League never waited for anyone.