Dembélé was the best mole on a pitch full of burrows

If football is an art where you find solutions to unexpected problems, Barça should receive a special mention for their match yesterday evening. We're talking about the pitch at the 'Nuevo Jose Zorrila' stadium. It won't go down in the history books as a classic, but it might as one of the most surrealistic football matches in a while. It was clear from the first minute that Ernesto Valverde, who spoke about his concerns regarding the playing surface in his press conference, had underestimated the issues at hand. The pitch was laid just four days earlier and it was pulled up with even the most minor of tackles or challenges.

The pitch looked grotesque, not by bad luck but rather negligence, and everything that happened in the match hurt because of that. It was improper of a competition which aspires to become the biggest in the world. In these conditions it as very difficult for anyone to stand out but it was Ousmane Dembele who found his way. He was always active and brave, on the left as much as the right, and he took advantage of Sergi Roberto's will to fight for a lost cause to score the winning goal. There was time to still see a marvellous pass from Messi or Coutinho to prove his quality, but you can fear the worst when the pitch was a greater protaganist than any player. And it feels ironic that just when LaLiga announced it would expand it's brand globally with a fixture in the United States, no one was capable of avoiding an official match being played on a lamentable pitch. It was continuously destroyed even further as the match played on.

This time, Barça had to invest 30 minutes to find their passing lines whilst avoiding the mounds of grass and mud you'd expect to see in an area infested by moles. It was pathetic to see players the quality of Messi, Coutinho and Dembele spending more time trying to avoid these molehills as they looked to create space for their teammates. It'd be like seeing Lebron James playing on the court where parts of the floor were sticking up. LaLiga is a competition which looks after its brand and a year ago introduced a rule which would fine clubs if their main stand, the one visible on television, wasn't sufficiently full. The embarrassment of the match which we all saw in Valladolid should serve as an example to something which should never happen again.