At 3–0, Barcelona appeared to have done most of the difficult work. Xavi Espart had opened the scoring, Raphinha had supplied two assists, and Lamine Yamal had added a penalty to his first-half finish.

But by the 88th minute, it was 3–2. The air smelt like an equaliser. Barça needed Karim Adeyemi’s stoppage-time intervention to settle a match that had become considerably more uncomfortable than the scoreline once promised. Another win, then. A fifth consecutive league victory, as the match report confirms. But this was also a proper examination of how this version of Barça responds when an opponent keeps coming at them.

There was plenty to enjoy. Lamine delivered again. Raphinha’s movement and awareness created the conditions for the early lead. Adeyemi supplied the pace and individual quality to finish the job.

Yet Levante were much more than a spirited opponent making the final minutes awkward. They created enough chances to change the result. They found space around Barça’s midfield, attacked the channels beside the centre-backs and made playing out from the back uncomfortable.

On another day, this could have ended differently.

Possession without protection

Barcelona had three-quarters of the ball. They could move it between defenders, find Rodri and build long passages of possession. What they could not do consistently was make Levante spend those passages believing their next attack would be a long way away.

Barça’s possession and passing advantages produced only a narrow lead in expected goals. Levante recorded more shots, shots on target and big chances.

The uncomfortable detail is how little possession Levante needed to threaten. Barça’s defenders had plenty of work to do and repeated emergency defending is an expensive way to protect a lead. The comparison below adds colour to this. Barcelona’s territorial advantage was considerable; their superiority across the rest of the contest was less uniform.

Barça led in possession, passing accuracy and final-third entries; Levante put more shots on target. Flick’s side have enough attacking quality to win games that become open. The question is whether they need to accept quite so much openness once they are already comfortably ahead.

The chances were closer than the score

The teams finished close on xG: Barcelona 2.58, Levante 2.42. Barça’s total includes the 0.79-xG penalty. Their higher xG on target reflects the additional threat of shot placement. Levante missed three big chances. Barcelona converted all three of theirs.

Football is a game of inches

That difference helped decide the match, but it should not make us dismiss what happened before the finish. Levante repeatedly got themselves into positions from which a goal was possible.

Barça repeatedly had to survive those situations.

How the match changed

The early goals gave Barcelona the ideal platform. Espart scored after five minutes, Lamine doubled the lead in the 19th, and the penalty shortly after half-time appeared to take the game beyond Levante.

But a scoreboard can move further in one team’s favour while the contest underneath it becomes less comfortable.

Barça reached 3–0 shortly after half-time; Romero and Brugué reduced the deficit after 75 minutes, before Adeyemi restored a two-goal margin at 90+3. Levante continued to commit players forward. Their substitutes brought fresh involvement, particularly Iván Romero, whose introduction gave the defence adifficult time.

Barcelona also changed personnel. Christensen replaced Gerard Martín at half-time. Bernal and Olmo entered for Pedri and Lamine at 66 minutes, with Adeyemi replacing Gordon a minute later.

Those changes definitely caused the momentum to shift and this will be a consustent issue for Flick through the league campaign, as he tries to keep his squad match fit by managing minutes.

Barça had to redistribute responsibilities while managing an opponent who were increasingly finding it easy to escape the press and reach Barca's box. They have focused on depth in this transfer window and yet the like for like changes are not always primed to solve problems with the same efficacy.

Levante never disappeared from the game. Their goals arrived late, but their willingness to attack and to not park the bus spoke volumes about their collective mentality.

Going 3-0 down did nothing to alter it

How Barcelona created their four goals

Espart’s opener was a full-back’s finish, but Raphinha did the work that made the opportunity available.

After going around the goalkeeper to his left, he continued towards the byline. The angle for his own finish had almost vanished. Instead of forcing the shot, he pulled the ball sharply back towards Espart at the edge of the area. Raphinha can carry an attack beyond the centre-backs without becoming committed to finishing it himself.

The second goal offered another version of that awareness. Barça progressed through Cubarsí and Fermín before finding Raphinha, whose cutback reached Lamine closer to goal. The club report traces the collective construction of the move. Lamine supplied the finish.

Lamine then won and converted a penalty.

Adeyemi’s contribution came under different conditions. By stoppage time, the match had become tense and Levante were chasing an equaliser. Bernal supplied him wide, and he turned that reception into a carry towards goal and the finish Barça needed.

This is one of the benefits of having a player with his acceleration available from the bench. He can change the immediate problem for the opposition. A team thinking about its next attack suddenly has to turn and defend a runner gathering speed.

Where Levante found the gaps

The Levante analysis identified the spaces alongside the pivot and the channels between full-back and centre-back as recurring targets. It also described how Levante used the channel for direct passes behind the defensive line.

Levante kept asking the awkward questions. They took three routes into Barça’s defensive structure: receiving beside the pivot, attacking the full-back–centre-back channel, and pressing the short build-up to restrict passing options.

For Barca the questions were tactical. If the full-back stepped towards the receiver, who protected the channel? If the centre-back moved across, who would cover the runner heading towards goal?

Barça’s high line needs pressure in front of it. Without that pressure, defenders have to judge the pass and the run while also keeping their distances from one another.

Levante did not need long spells of possession to create that uncertainty. Once they escaped the first challenge, the next pass could force Barcelona to turn and face a rapid transition.

Their wide attacks added another problem. Deliveries into the box forced clearances and left second balls to contest. Even when Barça dealt with the initial danger, they could find themselves defending another phase before recovering their shape.

The first goal concerned Barça’s ability to find a safe route out under pressure. The second concerned their ability to stop an attack once it had reached a dangerous area.

Dropping the defensive line alone would not resolve every problem Levante exposed. Barça also needed better support around the player in possession and a firmer response when the ball reached their box. At 3–0, there was room to recover from those mistakes. At 3–2, the same situations carried a very different threat.

The three players who hurt Barça

Romero needed only 31 minutes to become one of the match’s most dangerous players.

His influence came through repeatedly getting into shooting positions. He was not heavily involved in passing exchanges, but that was hardly the point of his contribution. Levante needed someone who could threaten the space ahead of the ball and turn defensive uncertainty into a chance. He supplied exactly that while Brugué’s performance covered more of the match and more of the pitch.

Brugué offered an attacking outlet, competed defensively and remained involved when Levante needed to keep believing while Víctor García's width, crossing and chance creation gave Levante another way to move the attack forward.

Romero led on xG despite playing 31 minutes. Brugué combined shooting with duel involvement, while Víctor added crossing and chance creation. Together, these three players did different jobs, which is precisely why the combination mattered. Barça could not solve the problem by watching one striker or protecting one passing lane.

The width gave Levante options. Romero’s presence added a central threat. Barcelona had to defend the full width of the attack while remaining alert to the space behind them. That was a much more demanding task than their possession advantage suggested.

Where Barça’s key players operated

Raphinha’s central role continued to offer Barça something valuable. He could leave the centre, combine with a teammate and still influence the decisive action inside the box. Lamine benefitted from that movement. He did not have to remain the player receiving wide and taking on the entire defence. There were moments when he could arrive closer to goal and finish a move. Espart’s attacking contribution added another runner to those exchanges while Rodri gave the team a central point through which to circulate and switch play.

This all was good, but there were some gaps as well.

When Espart advanced, someone needed to be ready to cover the gaps left behind by him. The midfielders needed workable distances between them. When Raphinha dropped or moved wide, the team needed enough presence ahead of the ball to keep the opposition occupied.

The system gave players freedom, but its success depended on the others recognising what that freedom required from them.

Could the midfield protect the lead?

Rodri gave Barcelona a huge amount of passing involvement and a reliable route for switching the ball. That contribution should remain part of the assessment. It would be too easy to look at Levante’s chances and conclude that the pivot failed at everything.

The harder question is whether Barcelona’s midfield could influence what happened immediately after possession changed. Could they delay the next pass? Could they reach the wide receiver? Could they give the defensive line time to settle?

Those are collective questions. Rodri cannot answer all of them on his own.

Rodri played 90 minutes, Pedri 66, Fermín 90 and Bernal 24. Pedri did not impose his usual calm throughout the game, while Fermín’s forward involvement came with the need to recover into position when attacks broke down.

The post-match assessment also questioned the team’s sharpness and interpreted the performance through fatigue. That is a plausible reading, although the statistics do not establish a physical cause.

Bernal deserves credit for his passing and the assist to Adeyemi. Coming into a match like this, the substitute had to understand its temperature: when to accelerate, when to hold possession and where the next danger was developing. Bernal did that and then some in a short amount of time.

Flick later explained that Espart had requested a substitution and that he delayed making it. He accepted responsibility for the first Levante goal in his reaction.

Lamine made the difference

What I liked about Lamine’s performance was how directly it affected the match. He finished the cutback. He won the penalty. By the time he left, Barcelona had a three-goal lead and he had supplied two of the goals. There were failed dribbles and lost possessions along the way. That comes with a player who keeps asking defenders to make difficult decisions.

He contributed half the goals and approximately 62% of the xG from 5.6% of the touches. Lamine did not need to dominate the number of touches to dominate the important moments.

Raphinha helped bring him into those moments. That relationship is becoming one of the most interesting parts of this attack: a forward willing to move, carry and supply, alongside another who can turn a brief opening into a goal.

On this occasion, Lamine’s value was primarily in the finishing positions he reached and the penalty he earned. He did not have to be the match’s leading creator as well.

Who created, who threatened?

The distinction between Raphinha and Lamine becomes clearer when chance creation and shooting threat are placed alongside each other.

Raphinha stands out for supplying chances, while Lamine and Romero stand out for shooting threat. The player who breaks the first line will not receive an assist. The runner who moves a defender may not appear prominently in the passing numbers.

Barça’s second goal demonstrated that well. Levante’s performance offered its own version, with wide players helping create the conditions for their forwards to threaten.

The most useful reading is how those contributions fitted together. Barcelona’s attack found the finishes. Levante’s attack found enough openings to keep the result uncertain.

What does this mean ?

Four goals away from home is a strong return. Barcelona showed collective combination play, individual finishing and a substitute capable of deciding the final moments.

But the defensive questions that challenged Hansi's Barca in the past two seasons, remain. Levante created five big chances with a quarter of the possession. They found several routes towards goal and kept using them even after falling three behind. A stronger opponent will find the same spaces. A more clinical one will need fewer opportunities to change the outcome.

The adjustments to counter this are practical. Better pressure on the passer. Shorter distances around the pivot. Clearer cover when the full-back advances. More recognition of when the game needs another attack and when it needs a quiet minute with the ball.

Barça have an attack that can win difficult matches. At Levante, it did.The next step is to make those matches less difficult once that attack has already built a three-goal lead.