Slavia Prague 1-2 Barcelona: 4 players who impressed and one who was poor | UEFA Champions League 2019/20
It was a very spirited game in Prague as Barcelona overcame a vibrant Slavia Prague challenge. The Blaugrana came into the Champions League matchup as overwhelming favourites and they took control of proceedings early on as Lionel Messi won the ball deep in Slavia territory, before starting a swift attacking manoeuvre which saw him at the end of Arthur Melo's pass in the box. The Argentine then knocked the ball past Ondrej Kolar from close range.
Barcelona were expected to dominate proceedings thereafter. However, the Czech champions refused to go down without a fight. They took the battle to Barca and in the 50th minute, their industry was rewarded thanks to a finish from left-back Jan Boril.
However, eight minutes later, Luis Suarez was wheeling away in celebration as his shot from close range deflected off Peter Olayinka's shoulder and into the net.
At the end of the day, Slavia dominated proceedings with a staggering 24 shots to Barca's 13, and the Blaugrana needed the golden touch of Marc-Andre ter Stegen to keep them afloat on a couple of occasions.
In this article, we analyse the performances of a few players in the encounter.
#5 Petr Sevcik - Poor
He had a pretty decent game, however, his blunder early on in the encounter set the tone for his side's painful defeat at the hands of Barcelona.
In the 3rd minute of the game, he did the one thing they probably warn you not to do in defensive school: give the ball away to Messi.
Sevcik tried to play a poor pass out of his defensive area and cheaply gave the ball away to the legendary Argentinean who had a quick one-two with Arthur before deftly stabbing the ball home for the game's opener.