Non-stop action. Great goals. Controversies galore. Sensational passes. Unreal drama. European football rarely lacks talking points after any given weekend of football, but with so much happening it can often be hard to focus on the biggest moments. ESPN India attempts to single out one moment from all the action across Europe's top 5 leagues (league action only) that lit up the weekend.
Our inaugural moment of the weekend comes from Barcelona vs Atletico Madrid, a game that was decided by the uncharacteristic calmness of one of the sport's most maverick talents, Ousmane Dembele.
Barcelona have the ball in the middle of the park, which is exactly where they've always liked it. Sergio Busquets gets the ball on the left flank before moving it back inside to Pedri. Which is when he goes full Pedri.
In one smooth motion, he pulls off a body feint that sends Koke out for a coffee while accelerating at a rate that leaves Antoine Griezmann well behind. Pablo Barrios rushes in to close him down but 'full Pedri' can't ever really be closed down. He skips past Barrios, lures in both Jose Gimenez and Stefan Savic, before toe-poking the ball to Gavi. Pedri and Gavi, Gavi and Pedri: when this twin fulcrum of Barcelona combines, the club wears a throwback look.
Gavi holds off Reinildo with a show of surprising strength and sits him down with a stiff arm and a quick turn... before immediately releasing Ousmane Dembele into acres of space down the right, well inside the box.
This is where time pauses to soak in the narrative.
In January 2022, Ousmane Dembele was not wanted at Barcelona. He had arrived at the club four and a half years previously, bought for 140 million Euros after just two senior seasons (at Rennes and Borussia Dortmund), money thrown at him as Barca looked to soothe the pain of losing Neymar to PSG. He had since started just a third of the games he could have, suffering 12 injuries along the way.
The hospital memes had long since passed from joke-territory to cruel. The potential was there for all to see, but without performance, Barcelona decided that meant nought...and they publically announced that he was not committed to their future and that he must leave. Stubbornly, he held on.
The Nou Camp booed him for a bit, as is their wont with athletes they believe aren't giving it their all (or just aren't good enough for their club), but with Xavi's very public support ringing loud, Dembele soon turned them into cheers. For once, it appeared, he had a manager who fully believed in him. Since that messy January, Dembele has paid back that faith: no Barcelona player has been involved in as many goals as he has (28: 20 G, 8A) since Xavi took over as manager in November 2021. This season, only Griezmann and he have had 5+ goals and 5+ assists in LaLiga.
He was doing so well that he got back into the good books of Didier Deschamps and the French national team in time for the '22 World Cup. He played a key role in France's run to the final, showing discipline and defensive tenacity as he provided the perfect counterweight to the explosiveness of Kylian Mbappe on the other flank. In the final, though, it was like an old nightmare had resurfaced. He gave away a penalty and did absolutely nothing going forward -- so little that he was subbed off before half-time. Another big match (the biggest of them all), and another poor, poor performance (arguably the poorest of them all) from Dembele. For a career that was so gently being resurrected, this could have been a harsh, telling blow.
It's with all this in the background that Dembele received the ball in the Atleti box.
Unpause, time.
Dembele knows bodies are going to fly at him, at his shot. That this is what Atleti do. Ansu Fati had already been foiled by two incredible blocks from Savic and Gimenez. Pedri had had a one-on-one with the keeper stopped by Nahuel Molina steaming in from across the other flank. Dembele knows there is no chance he can get away with trying two touches. They were only 20 minutes in, but against Atleti, they weren't going to get a better chance.
So, with the ball rolling perfectly across him, with two bodies flying out to stop him, he slaps it hard and low. Into the side netting it goes, inside the far post. 1-0 Barcelona.
'1-0 Barcelona' is how the score would remain, the three points pushing them three clear of Real Madrid at the top of LaLiga, and a whopping fourteen clear of fifth-placed Atletico. And it all happened because when it mattered, Ousmane Dembele did what Ousmane Dembele has always promised to do - decide the fate of an important match through a moment of magic.
Enorme victoria, vamosssss!!!!! ����#ForçaBarça! ���� pic.twitter.com/6F0zENmG66
- Ousmane Dembélé (@dembouz) January 8, 2023
Just how cool was that finish, just how vital was it? Including the goal, Barcelona created just 0.7 xG on Sunday. That finish had been ruthless.