Sergi Roberto's unexpected 'KO' disrupted Xavi's plan for the Clásico

The FC Barcelona travelled to Madrid to contest the Classical with the lucky certainty that they would arrive to the duel in Santiago Bernabéu only with two absences: Pablo Gavi (complete break of the ligament crossed previous of the right knee and an injury associated in the lateral meniscus) and Alejandro Balde (desinserción in the sinew of the biceps femoral of the right leg), those who are lesionados from does long and does not expect that they return but until the season 2024-25. Under this premise, Xavi Hernández, commissioned to make the alignment of the 11 'gladiators' that would confront to the cast merengue, had the luck to have almost all his available players in a season in which the team has suffered a lot of drops.

However, the egarense had to lidiar with an unlucky drop of last just minute before the start of the commitment: Sergi Roberto. This absence trastocó ´ the plan of game that the one of Terrassa had foreseen for the Classical, as it explains 'SPORT'.

The one of Reus came dragging a physical problem in the knee from the training of the Saturday, which caused him pain. In spite of this, after subjecting to medical examinations, considered convenient that travelled with the staff to the Spanish capital, waiting for how would feel before the duel. Unfortunately, his feelings did not improve during the previous warming to the party, and the canterano finished desisting of the idea to contribute with his game on the lawn of Santiago Bernabéu.

Xavi lost a big piece to reinforce the medullary zone

This affected negatively the intentions of Xavi Hernández regarding Sergi Roberto. As it exposes the informative source referred in previous lines, the trainer egarense expected to give prominence him, already was ranging it from the start as it did it in the Classical of the final of the Supercopa of Spain 2023-24, or like an interesting option to be a revulsivo in case that they presented similar situations to which occurred in the clash against the Real Madrid, where the injury of Frenkie of Jong and the annoyances presented by Andreas Christensen forced to the of Terrassa to take part his medullary zone and have a player like the reusense had been very useful by his profile more than mediocentro-pivote.

However, Sergi Roberto could not contest neither a minute in this Classical. In spite of this, did not prevent him exert his paper of leader from the bench, encouraging to his mates and living with intensity a meeting in which, inevitably, Xavi missed it. In the first place, by his good recent performance, since the canterano had offered technical solutions from the central zone of the field, and also because it confronted to a rival to the that has gone him very well. In the 21 opportunities in which it has measured against the ones of Chamartín, has obtained a positive balance of 10 victories, two ties and eight defeats, in addition to converting a target and provide six assistances, being this the square against which more assistances has given in his professional career.