At Barcelona, listening to experienced players like Raphinha and Inigo Martinez has become essential. Both of them are key leaders in a young squad, and they are not afraid to speak up when the team falls short of its expected performance.
This was clear following the disappointing loss to Las Palmas on Saturday. Raphinha was quick to highlight the team’s mistakes, pointing out that many things were being done wrong and stressing the need for improvement.
Similarly, Inigo didn’t hold back during his post-match reflections, offering a frank assessment of the team’s performance.
Inigo Martinez’s analysis
Inigo Martinez is not happy after yesterday’s defeat. (Photo by Eric Alonso/Getty Images)
Inigo acknowledged that analysing the loss right after the game was difficult but promised that the team would review the match thoroughly in the coming days to understand where they went wrong.
“We are doing many things wrong and we have to improve,” he told Barça One.
He recognised that the team had struggled both offensively and defensively, making it clear that if Barcelona aren’t performing at their best, winning games becomes a real challenge.
“It’s difficult to analyse what happened now, and we’ll do it starting this Sunday and we’ll know where we failed and where we didn’t.
“The team’s level hasn’t been good either in attack or defence and it’s clear that if we’re not at our best it will be difficult to win games,” he explained.
Entire team is hurt
Inigo Martinez says the entire team is hurt. (Photo by Srdjan Stevanovic/Getty Images)
The defender also admitted that the team was feeling hurt and disappointed by the defeat, especially at such a critical time when a victory was crucial for their league position and for the overall morale of the club.
“We are hurt, sad, and the sensations are a bit strange, you can’t always win, one day it was going to come and it has come at a complicated moment when we had to win in the League, add three points and at a historic moment for the club.”
It was a tough game for the team. Barcelona fell behind early, and despite managing to equalise quickly, they failed to capitalise on that momentum.
“It wasn’t a good game for the team, going behind on the scoreboard and then turning it around is hard. The team wasn’t good.”
Inigo explained that after their goal, the team tried to push for a quick turnaround, but this approach led to mistakes.
Barcelona will be back
Inigo Martinez is urging his teammates to learn from their mistakes. (Photo by Pedro Salado/Getty Images)
There were numerous errors, misplaced passes, and unnecessary losses of possession, which allowed Las Palmas to score again and ultimately secure the win.
“The team reacted well to their first goal, we scored quickly, but after scoring we wanted to come back too quickly, there were many losses, many inaccuracies and it led to them scoring again.”
Despite the pain of the defeat, Inigo remained confident that the team would bounce back. He emphasised that while this loss hurt, it was important to accept the situation, learn from it, and use it as motivation moving forward.
“We have to accept it and learn from this, there’s still a long way to go and I have no doubt that the team will fight and now we have to get up from this. It hurts, but we have to learn from these moments,” he explained.
The defender is certain that the team will continue to fight and work hard to recover from this setback, acknowledging that there’s still plenty of time to make up for this disappointing result.