Three games were packed into the next eleven days. Levante at home, Villarreal away, then Celta up at Balaídos, and four days after that, Real Madrid.
Everybody in the building knew it was coming. Nobody was allowed to say so.
"Eyes on Levante," Martino told them on the Monday morning. "I don't want to hear the word Madrid in this room for two weeks."
Alves put his hand up. "Sorry, boss. Which word was it again?"
"Get out."
MD27: Barcelona 4-0 Levante. Camp Nou, March 10th.
Martino rested Messi completely for this one. He watched it from the stands with Antonela and Thiago, and somewhere in the first half the cameras found him crouched next to his son, pointing something out on the pitch.
Levante lasted twelve minutes.
Lorenzo bent the first one in from the edge of the box, past the keeper at his near post. His fifty-seventh league goal of the season. He barely celebrated it.
Neymar cut inside from the left to make it two. Pedro got the third off a Busquets pass. Lorenzo tapped in an Alba cross just after the break for his fifty-eighth.
"Man, this got boring way too fast," Neymar said in the tunnel afterwards.
"It got boring because you lot scored four inside an hour." Alba said.
"Yeah, and one of them was mine, and it was still boring."
MD28: Villarreal 1-2 Barcelona. El Madrigal, March 14th.
This one was not boring at all.
Martino rested Piqué as well as Xavi and put Bartra in alongside Mascherano.
You could hear the problem from the stands. Piqué and Mascherano had never needed to talk. Bartra and Mascherano talked all night.
"Step! Step up!"
"No, hold it! Hold!"
"Marc, step!"
In the 23rd minute the two of them stepped at different times. Giovani dos Santos came off the back of Bartra's shoulder, took the pass from Cani, turned him, and hit it low past Valdés at the near post.
Villarreal 1-0.
Three thousand travelling fans sat down at the same time. The rest of El Madrigal got very loud.
Mascherano walked back with his hands on his head. Bartra would not look at him.
"It's fine, boys, don't sweat it," Busquets said, jogging past the pair of them. "Long way to go yet. Just keep playing."
Neymar did not wait. He took the ball on the left and ran straight at Musacchio. Then he did it again, and then again, until Musacchio was backing off five yards before Neymar had even touched the ball.
In the 34th minute Neymar beat two of them and curled it into the far corner. Asenjo did not move.
1-1. The away corner came up so fast that a whole row of seats banged shut behind them.
In the 67th, Neymar collected the ball on the halfway line and just went. Thirty yards of carrying, three Villarreal shirts behind him and none of them close enough to touch him. At the edge of the box he slid it across to Lorenzo.
One touch. Right foot. Low, inside the near post.
1-2.
Lorenzo turned for the away corner and Neymar got there before him, arms out wide, pointing back down the pitch at where he had started.
"Did you see that?" he was shouting over the noise. "Did you see how far I carried it?"
"I was right there. I saw it."
"That was thirty metres, easy. Maybe more. Say it."
"It was thirty."
"Say it properly."
"It was thirty metres, Ney."
"Thank you."
On the touchline, Martino kept his arms folded and looked up at the clock.
In the dressing room afterwards, Busquets sat on the floor with his boots off.
"Some nights you can just feel it," he said, to nobody in particular. "Which one of us wants the ball more than everyone else does." He nodded over at Neymar. "Tonight it felt like it was you. Like you were angry with it or something."
Neymar grinned at him. "I'm not always angry with it, you know."
"I know. That's what I'm saying. Tonight felt different."
On the television in the corner, Santiago was still going.
"Neymar has been the best player on this pitch tonight. Messi's been quiet, Lorenzo takes the winner, and it's the man on the left who is dragging Barcelona through the hardest game of their week."
"A goal and an assist," Inés said. "Two key passes, three chances created. Take Piqué and Xavi out of a side and somebody has to step up and decide the game. Tonight that's Neymar Jr."
MD29: Celta Vigo 1-3 Barcelona. Balaídos, March 18th.
For this one Martino went full strength, and Messi scored twice. A free kick in the first half, then a run through half the Celta team in the second that had people talking about Getafe in 2007 all over again. Lorenzo assisted both of those goals and headed one in himself off an Alba cross with ten minutes left. Fifty-nine.
Celta got one back through Nolito, who came through La Masia before Barcelona let him go. He curled it past Valdés at the far post, then turned away with his hands down at his sides and did not celebrate it.
The Balaídos crowd celebrated for him. Nolito just walked back to the halfway line on his own.
Three games, three wins, nine points. Lorenzo on fifty-nine league goals in twenty-nine appearances. Barcelona unbeaten in all twenty-nine.
Atlético won all three of theirs as well. They usually did. Simeone's side kept pulling points out of games that looked like they had none in them, Costa kept scoring, and their defence was one of the best in Europe. The title race was alive. On paper, at least.
And then came Real Madrid.
MD30: Real Madrid at Camp Nou. March 22nd.
Ancelotti's side had not beaten them all season. Six one across the two legs of the Super Cup. Four two in the Copa final. Ronaldo had scored once in those three games, a header in the second leg.
The press conferences started on the Wednesday. The team news was on television by Thursday. Camp Nou sold out inside an hour.
Lorenzo sat in the kitchen, the same kitchen where Lucia had sat three days ago, the same chair, the same table and opened the Clásico scouting report on his tablet.
The system arrived with it. No sound, no notification, just there, the way a thought turns up when you are not sure it belongs to you.
[They'll double up on you from the first whistle. Ramos and Pepe, with Alonso sitting behind them. The space will be out wide. Marcelo pushes up, Carvajal comes inside. Neymar's side is where it opens.]
Lorenzo read the scouting report. Martino's version said the same thing, in four pages.
Four days left until the El Clásico.
You know what time it is! Drop those Power Stones to keep us climbing the ranks!
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