Barcelona bulldozers on amid Catalonia chaos
MADRID — Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde sees little reason to let the political upheaval in Catalonia distract his players’ focus after the club recorded its best ever start to a La Liga season on Saturday.
On Valverde’s return to Athletic Bilbao, which he left to take charge at Camp Nou in June, goals from Lionel Messi and Paulinho secured a 2-0 win to restore Barca’s fourpoint lead over Valencia at the top of the standings after nine wins and a draw in its opening 10 league games.
Victory came a day after the Catalan parliament voted in favor of a unilateral declaration of independence and Spain reacted by asserting direct rule over the deeply divided region.
As a club, Barcelona has backed Catalonia’s right to self-determination in a referendum but stopped short of supporting independence, and Valverde again refused to get embroiled in the political debate.
“For the past month there has been a lot of news and every day it changes,” he said on Saturday.
“The truth is we concentrate on football. At the moment it isn’t going badly for us and so that’s what we’ll continue to do.”
Unlike some of the scintillating soccer it played early in Valverde’s reign, Barca had to grind out victory at San Mames as it withstood intense second-half pressure after Messi’s opener.
However, two wonder-saves from goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen to deny Aritz Aduriz ensured Barca registered its seventh clean sheet of its opening 10 league matches.
“The bar is very high at Barcelona,” added Valverde.
“We always want to dominate the game, to create chances and play football that people love — like in the move for Messi’s goal.
“Sometimes you manage that and other times not because your opponent plays well, but defensively we are very sound and that is something we have tried to improve.
“We know our way of playing is to attack, but to be able to grit your teeth when it gets tough also has its merit.
“It’s important when you are put under pressure to be able to still salvage the points.”
Valverde enjoyed four highly successful seasons in his second spell as Athletic boss before being handed his shot at the big time at Barca.
He has been badly missed as the Basques have now won just once in their last 12 matches under Valverde’s replacement, Jose Angel Ziganda.
And Valverde admitted to feeling more spooked by the experience of sitting on the visiting bench than he imagined.
“It was stranger than I thought it would be,” said the 53-year-old. “I’m happy to come back and see so many friends, but when you come here as the visiting team you notice how much the fans push (Athletic) on.
“This is a classic match in La Liga. I have experienced it from the Athletic side and apart from one year we lost 2-5 here (2015), we always made Barca suffer.
“I thought Athletic played very well, with the same spirit they always play with.”