Barcelona’s victory over Atletico Madrid in the big derby echoed across Spain. And Europe. The game was not as interesting as the result itself (4-2), but it encouraged the fans to think that Xavi Hernandez, an icon of the club, can bring back the winning glow to the fallen giant.Barcelona are suffering serious criticism and rightfully so. Last week, they struggled against Alaves until the 85th minute but Frankie de Jong found his way to the net for three important points in the very end. There is a lot of ups and downs in Barcelona’s game and there will be even more oscillations until all January transfer action sits into place. Regardless, the numbers speak clearly in Xavi’s favor when comparing the performance of his team and the one that was led by Ronald Koeman.17.02. Thu 20:45: (2.05) Barcelona (3.45) Napoli (3.60)Xavi took over Barcelona at the moment when they were ninth in the Primera table. Barca are now in the Champions League ‘zone’, with a tendency to end the season as the first team behind Real Madrid. There are two reasons for Barca’s significant rise. The main one is certainly that the team takes more points per game, more precisely, 21 in 10 rounds, which is 70 percent of the possible 30 for that period. Koeman’s Barça took 15 points in 10 rounds, which is 50 percent. The second reason is that the competition has stumbled more lately and thus gave Barcelona a chance to progress.Xavi’s new Barca leapfrog Atletico, hammering them thanks to the first-half perfect storm at Camp NouIn general, Xavi’s Barcelona are at 46 percent of success in all competitions. In 15 La Liga matches, Champions League, Copa del Rey and the Spanish Super Cup, Barca won seven times – against Espanyol, Villarreal, Elche, Mallorca, Linares, Alaves and Atletico. Draws came against Benfica, Osasuna, Sevilla and Granada, while Barca suffered defeats against Betis, Bayern, Real Madrid and Bilbao – of which last two came in overtime.Koeman had only five triumphs which made up for only 38 percent of the won matches. Of the remaining eight, he drew in three – against Bilbao, Granada and Cadiz while the losses came from Bayern, Benfica, Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid and Rayo Vallecano.Sun 23:00: (5.00) Espanyol (3.70) Barcelona (1.80)The conclusion is that Barcelona has been fighting more for points since Xavi took over the command. Looking at the table only from that moment, more precisely from his debut against Espanyol, Barcelona would be second on the imaginary table, only two points behind Real Madrid.Another interesting aspect from which yesterday’s victory in the derby can be observed is the role of Adama Traore. The corpulent winger returned to his hometown and the club where he grew up, with a great desire that this time his stay at the Camp Nou stadium will be one to remember. Without fear, with a lot of confidence, Traore played his second debut for the senior team of Barça and silenced the critics who did not look favorably on Xavi’s decision to bring him back.Adama Traore provided zero assists in 29 appearances for Wolves…He assisted on his Barcelona debut after 21 minutes 😅 pic.twitter.com/xsblCH5Gay— GOAL (@goal) February 6, 2022 The Spanish media praise his desire to prove himself and the fact that he placed Atletico’s Mario Hermoso “in his pocket”, especially because he returned to Barça after not very good performances with Wolverhampton. He sent an assist almost out of nothing for Gavi’s goal and was a constant threat to the guests from Madrid on the right flank, where he cooperated well with Dani Alves.In addition, Adama is given importance because he did exactly what Xavi asked him to do – to be constantly active on the right side and sabotage Atletico’s actions in a wider range. Fatigue was obvious in the second half of the game, which is why he left the pitch after 60 minutes of play and was replaced by Pierre Emerick Aubamyyang, with Ferran Torres moving to the right flank. With probably Barca’s most expensive failure of all time (Ousmane Dembele) being criticized left and right, Adama Traore is slowly taking everyone’s focus from that saga. Although that wound will hurt for a long time.”I absorbed Barcelona’s DNA. I am very happy to be back,” Adama said briefly.Adama Traore did more for Fc Barcelona in 45 minutes than Ousame Dembele did in his 5 years in the blaugrana shirt. pic.twitter.com/YOjkAzp88y— Trig (@Kharlerh) February 6, 2022 After six and a half years abroad, Traore family witnessed to see Adama successfully wearing the Barcelona shirt. Luis Enrique wrote him off in 2015, now he has returned with the message that he does not intend to go anywhere and that he dreams of success with Barca.The club may not have been fair to him, but we should not forget that Barça won the last triplet in the time of Luis Enrique, after which the decline began. There was no place for Traore then, there probably wouldn’t be even today if the circumstances at the Camp Nou were more favorable. Barcelona now need their La Masia offsprings bringing success, and Adama feels the weight of the shirt of the Catalan giant like none other.
