This evening at 10 pm bt,
Barcelona plays the return game of the 1/8 finals of the Spanish cup against Atlético Madrid.
Barcelona plays the return game of the 1/8 finals of the Spanish cup against Atlético Madrid.
Atlético squad:
Franco, Coupet, Perea, Ujfalusi, Ibáñez, López, Pernía, De las Cuevas, Luis García, Assuncao, Raúl García, Camacho, Simao, Ever Banega, Agüero, Sinama Pongolle
Barcelona squad list:
Valdés, Pinto, Jorquera, Alves, Márquez, Piqué, Puyol, Cáceres, Abidal, Sylvinho, Xavi, Touré, Busquets, Keita, Gudjohnsen, Messi, Eto'o, Bojan, Henry, Pedro, Iniesta, Hleb
!!! LIVE MATCH CHAT !!!
From two hours before until two hours after the game you can join a match chat (read more here)
Re-live the first game of the qualification:
video
pictures 1 2
Before (what are your expectations, what's your prediction, what should be the line-up,...), during and after the match, you can also comment on the game here.
Posts
13 comments:
According to eurosport, barcelona's starting XI are:
Pinto, Sylvinho, Caceres, Marquez, Alves, Keita, Toure, Gudjohnsen, Iniesta, Bojan, Henry
Subs:
Abidal, Puyol, Eto'o, Xavi, Busquets, Messi, Pique.
only 5 subs can be, and i think that hleb will play, maybe and pedro
pinto
alves pique caceres abidal
keita yaya gudi
iniesta bojan henry
good call kiki. Barcelona's website has the same lineup except hleb for henry
Yea hopefully they leave that loser Marquez out all he does is mistake's that Puyol alway's has to clean up thank GOD for our Catalan player's!!Viva Barca!!
just shut up start watching the games...
marquez has been essential for our success
man i love that team. toure was great today and so guddi. i love that blond guy. he can control the ball and play a one two like a catalan. busquets wins so many tackles. the only problem was bojan. i know he's still learning but if he needs 4 hundert percent chances to score one goal... that would make it hard for him to get more minutes in league games.
can this catalan anon reveal his identity? DID MARQUES KILL YOUR CHILD? pls 4give him for whatever he has done in the past. Its very sad cos he doesnt know you exist let alone hate him.
I really enjoyed the game.. yet another great performance by Marques. he cleared d ball on the line WHAT A GRAT DEFENDER. LONG LIVE THE GREAT MEXICAN... wink wink....
Cáceres sure did have an off game... first half was terrible for him.
Marquez was absolutely impeccable. Caceres was poor but Gaurdiola seemed to have decided on a Kun man-marking role for him so in that capacity I think he did reasonably ok as in Kun barely got the ball throughout the game. The midfield was awesome with all three performing great unlike the last game. Busquets is much better playing with yay by his side rather than as a stand alone DM. Guddy was really good !! Yaya tremendous.
Although Bojan was wasteful but I like his touch, balance and positioning when receiving passes. Seems like the front-bench top of the class student who jotted down notes n payed rapt attention to everything during his coaching days. He is gonna be the world's best striker one day. Hleb was also in good form.
Why is it that teams seem to think its necessary to hack down at least one Barca player every game. Its like as though they are willfully trying to injure one key attacking force or the other in some sort of wide trans-national conspiracy. The only time Iniesta got any respite was after Messi came on n the Atletico defense decided he was a better target. Iniesta wafted through the Atletico defense like as though he was floating a few feet above the ground and nobody could touch him.
Note: Toure's touching consolation of the young Caceres when the young lad's confidence needed some shoring up.
Iniesta,Gudjohnsen, Yaya, Marques, and Alves were playing top notch futbol...Very Impressive. Much respect to Pinto also making some incredible decisions and saves in the game. The midfield ball passing was mesmerising at times.
Cáceres made some shaky decisions in the first, but did handled his buisness in the second half. Oh well you can't always expect perfection from the youngster every game, and no goals were scored as a result of any of them anyway. I'm certain he learned some valuable lessons from this match. Overall it was an exciting hard earned win.
CHEERS FRIENDS
My "briefed" five cents:
Two cents for fast remarks:
- Valencia won...I like that team a lot but the Copa final will be in Valencia, so for once I was hoping they lose that game.
- We got what we wanted from this game, not the best performance for Barcelona standards, but a very good game for "Barcelona Light" selection.
- More goals Conceded thru Crosses to our Box.
- Gudi upgraded his attributed to V 2.0, better passing, better decisions, and the same good work rate, positioning, and tactical awareness.
- Hleb was better than his after injury performances, yet still need time and notable improvement.
- Sylvinho, I like this new guy from our youth academy.
-Iniesta, i will not talk about him, anyone still think a left wing is a Must buy?
- Marquez was the best defender in the game.
- Caceres and Bojan, another game to learn from, both have the time to grow up. Great tackle for Caceres the second half, and is it true that bojan scored by head?
- Pinto: if you want a Valdes Back up, he is the one on the short term, but if you want a keeper to challenge Valdes, do some shopping.
- Busquets: An accomplished package, our new man for the midfield.
- Yaya: thought caught out of position sometimes, but credit to pep, he knew he cant afford benching him in this tricky game, his presence is a MUST.
- Alves: you can see it, to make a mess, he miss Messi, but he still can live up to expectations. I am only worried that we need to save his fuel when we can.
I will save 3 of the five cents talking about pep, because it was a tricky tactical game so we need to see some little details to evaluate him:
Guardiola did the right normal things in this game, I don't mean his Substitutions were brilliant, but those were actually the obvious substitutions that any coach would do without thinking twice. why?
Reading the game while it was going on(minute 60 to 70 when the Messi substitution happened), there was a chance that ATM may score another goal-if anyone exclude that possibility then watch that period of the game again, if it happened then we will be in a big trouble against an Ultra motivated Atletico who will have no more worries to throw all what they have on us (they will be one goal far from glory), and with that shaky defense we had then the third goal in the following 10 to 15 minutes will be no more "unlikely" , in Sports it is called "dry quicksand" situation, it often happens and coaches do their best to avoid it.
Then(Result 1-3)and I don’t want to think of what’s next, something like: They all go back dragging the game to penalties and lets see whom we have to take the penalty shots and whom they have. I am telling you, thats "the sand that swallow people" situation, when u r in, the more you move to get out, the faster you sink.
Solution: They moved a lot in our half, and there was a need to drag them back to their own half, who can do it? Messi substitution was more a defensive approach than an offensive one. You use the player when you feel you need it -like last night-, not when you guarantee he wouldn't get injured, nothing can guarantee this even in training, so we must not get over obsessed by protecting Messi, or else other teams will abuse this one.
Now, again, I share Pep his opinion of not keeping one of the active yet not productive players in the field (yes Hleb) and taking of one of the performers of the game and a goal scorer by nature (we knew it since before right? At least pep knew it), I mean Gudi, So I see that as a natural sub, not brilliant but definitely not a foolish one.
Also it was impossible to take off Caceres at the start of second half, he had bad first half but this is a gamble u take when you start a youth, you know that no matter how he perform u cant substitute him directly after first half end, that’s in the coaching Bible.
He needed fresh legs and he substituted only the defenders he can with the ones he have.
My only worry about pep is that he get over involved emotionally in the game, he live it more as a player than a coach, u can see it when things go little tough, I hope this change because in the following big games he need the focus of a coach more than the drive of a captain, but again i think the secret word here is "Vilnanova".
Considering the reasonable gamble we took thru benching some of our key players, the game wasn't as easy as it may look in a first glance. But it was managed well, so again I praise Pep and co attention to details.
Quiet right Ramzi, I remember thinking he has to bring Messi on. Attack is the best form of defense and bringing Messi on would keep Atletico in their own half focussed on not being overwhelmed if they over-committed going fwd.
But I think pep's reactions indicate that he believes now more than anyone else that they can achieve the treble. He really was into this one. Lot of people have been saying that this is the competition that pep secretly hopes to lose so that he can focus on the big 2. But pep, i think believes both in himself and in this incredible squad and would like to win all 3. What is important is that he has proved that he can keep the team winning comprehensively in all competitions while resting his big guns and using his rotation policy so that all players remain fresh and at the same time challenging for a spot on the team.
Sylvinho really proved his worth today and i hope pep plays him a lot more from the start coz it is unlikely he will be used in key games as a sub to break a deadlock (such a substitution would be too big a risk). I wish we had a back-up for Dani Alves. The enthusiasm with which he plays every game every minute makes you wonder when he will eventually run out of steam (hopefully never). Surprising that a couple of seasons back we seemed to have many players to cover the wingback positions but now we seem to be short. Maybe we could have hung on to Belletti or could buy a someone to cover for Alves before the transfer window closes.. Sylvinho seems good enough to close out the season for us on the left.
Post a Comment