Ronald Koeman has praised Barcelona’s composure after the Catalan club cruised past an ‘aggressive’ Sevilla side 2 – 0 in the La Liga on Saturday.
The 16-time Spanish Champions got a revenge for their Copa del Rey defeat at Seville two-and-a-half weeks ago as Dembele slotted home from a Messi through-ball, before the provider turned scorer with an individual goal in the 85th minute to put the game to bed.
“I am very proud, especially in physical terms because we have equaled a very strong team without the ball and with the ball we have been calm,” the Dutch manager said in the post-match press conference, reported by the Barca Times.
“That has been the difference, Ilaix (Moriba) came in strong, very calm with the ball, he helped us.
“We changed the system to put more pressure on Sevilla, we didn’t leave them alone throughout the match, the key today was not to let Sevilla play and be very aggressive.”
Barcelona and Sevilla will meet again on Wednesday as the former host the latter in the second leg of the Copa del Rey semi-final, with Barcelona needing to overturn a 2-0 first-leg deficit.
“Wednesday will be another game, we will both try to improve.
“The first thing we have to do is show today’s ambition of the team, if we play a full game again, we will have chances,” Koeman said.
Antoine Griezmann was not in action for the entire duration of the encounter as he was confined to the bench, but Koeman has denied the striker’s omission to be an indicative of any underlying feud.
“Zero minutes for Griezmann? There is no message for Griezmann,” he said.
“We changed the system to take advantage of Dembele’s speed and then (Martin) Braithwaite came in because he was the best for the team.”
The result sees Barcelona leapfrog Real Madrid into second in the table, but Los Blancos have a game in hand on them.
