This evening at 8 pm bt,
Barcelona plays the 24th game of the league against Espanyol Barcelona.
Barcelona plays the 24th game of the league against Espanyol Barcelona.
Espanyol squad list:
Kameni, Cristian, Javi Ruiz, David García, Lacruz, Sergio Sánchez, Beranger, Nico Pareja, Torrejón, Jarque, Román, De la Peña, Ángel, Moisés, Callejón, Luis García, Nené, Coro, Tamudo, Iván Alonso, Juanjo
Barcelona squad list:
Valdés, Pinto, Jorquera, Alves, Puyol, Piqué, Márquez, Cáceres, Abidal, Sylvinho, Xavi, Touré, Busquets, Keita, Gudjohnsen, Messi, Eto'o, Bojan, Henry, Iniesta
Re-live Espanyol-Barcelona 1-2
match data
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Posts
28 comments:
1 point from 6 is poor over the last two games barca are allowing this too happen an bottling it! ref was a disrace probably paid off by madrid!, valdes is absolute joke barca need a much better keeper!
Yes, the ref was poor and so was Valdes (couldn't agree more that we need a world class keeper), but leaving the game to one side, has anyone noticed that, every week, Madrid get to play the team which exhausted itself chasing leather against us the previous week? I first noticed this when Kanoute got frustrated and sent off against us so missed Sevilla's Madrid game the next week. This cannot be random, nor fair and the effect only gets worse as the season goes on and opposition players fatigue and accumulate suspensions. Another not too subtle conspiracy against us?
ARG IM SO FRUSTRATED OVER THIS GAME SUCH GARBAGE PLAY FROM BARCA... XAVI WAS NOT PERFORMING WAT SO EVER AND WITHOUT INIESTA OUR CREATIVE ENGINE NEVER GOT GOIN ... VALDES LAST SEASON ANTICS ARE BACK ...WHY ON EARTH CANT WE DISPOSE THESE BOTTOM LEAGUERS WITH EASE....
DISAPPOINTMENT ALL A ROUND FROM THIS DISPLAY ...
I am going to rant!! . Give me some space
I have never seen a more vile, deceitful and shameless bunch of people who call themselves footballers than Espanyol.
The ref was definitely paid off by Madrid, Espanyol couldn't afford it.
I don't know why Pep didn't bring on Sylvinho for Puyol. I have never seen the defense so disorganised this season.
He should have taken Eto'o off rather than Henry in the first place.
I understand the game might have been to physical for Bojan to be deemed effective but at least he might have put some crosses in.
The first sub of Busquets too can be explained because otherwise the load on Xavi and Toure would have been too great but after going 2 goals behind he could have taken a defender off and brought on Bojan.
Horrible game, we seemed totally lost after the sending off. But it is all because of sleazy refree and the Madrid ass-kissing bastards who claim to be Catalan.
****ref ****valdes ****betis
Valdes!!! i have bemoaning his presence in the Barca goal for years now.
and he wants to be paid as much as Casillas
very bad...lately it seems we've been lacking the cutting edge that we had earlier, whether it be of fatigue, complacency, or whatever. we need to get our grit back ASAP! with all everyone is saying, i would still rather be in our shoes than madrids. we have a seven point lead! lets not blow it! WE MUST REGAIN OUR FOCUS
...don't think that the ref got paid...think that this game was even difficult for the ref too...sometimes you win or lose...same for valdes...to judge only valdes is too easy...midfield had no creativity,strikers don't scored,defence made mistakes...they lost all together...but no problem...like rocky said...it's over when it's over...also agree with some anony above said...
Yea,I agree,we lost the cutting edge...
And Valdes did awful mistake...
But you just cant play against that shit of ref...
Keita red card-so funny,there was no foul there,and he gets automatic red card....
I just hope that we regain focus and beat Lyon and then take revenge for this loss on Atletico....
Man I'm pissed!
Seriously, what was that last half hour about?
Totally no structure!
Pique LB? Busi CF? Use you're last change on Guddy to save the day?
The defence beaten time after time.
Barça needs a keeper that can save their asses when it's not going good to the squad not start giving assists to the opponent.
A keeper that keeps their head above water and motivates the rest of the squad to go for the equalizer or winner.
That keeper is not Valdes.
This match shows that it still can go all ways. Wether it's in the liga, the CL or the copa.
i hope espanyol will be relegated this season but after they defeat r.madrid next week. Messi is not playing his level and valdes should lose his place next season because he has mistakes every now and then. Referee ruined the match but wins against lyon ang A. madrid will bring the confidence back. Don't worry about the gap. It will increase soon.
Must focus on the next game, because if we lose in madrid next week it's going to be very nasty season end.
But we lost the first game and then we have that fantastic run of great games...let's hope that loose will have the same effect-influence.
Visca el Barca
And Abidal is out for 2 months.
My opinion of the players today
Valdes - For this one game, I hate him. Usually he is amazing though...He didn't play bad except for the one game-losing pass.
Pique - Very dissapointing, especially in attack (although he probably did the best he could for a central defender). Should have been taken out for Sylvinho so Puyol could go center and Sylvinho would be on the left, attacking.
Marquez - N/A. O wait... he played, huh? I can't remember anything he did good or bad.
Alves - Best player today (but that's not saying much). He was one of the only ones that seemed like he was awake.
Abidal - Good for what I saw of him
Puyol - He belongs in the center. He did good on the left, but Sylvinho would have done better
Xavi - One of his worst games ever. Usually he is top ten in the world, but today was extremely dissapointing
Toure - Thanks for the consolation, but other than that, he didn't do anything special. Great goal though...
Busquets - Was he really playing?
Keita - Can't really say much. Played fine for when he was there. Didn't deserve a red.
Gudjohnsen - I am usually a fan, but today, he SUCKED HARD!!! He was slower than a senior citizen! Did he know this was a rivalry game and that we were down a goal??? Absolutely HORIIBLE!!! I haven't seen that bad a play since Oleguer...Really dissapointing. I expected he would do much better. Let Bojan handle the big games.
Messi - Normal Player Scale - 8. Messi Scale - 5. Not his most inspirring performance. Great, but for his standards, average.
Eto'o - Not bad at all, but did nothing really impressive. He should have stayed on instead of Gudjohnsen. (Or be substituted for Bojan)
Henry - How would this game have been different if he had scored that first open-net chance? They might have won. Might have. As Ray Hudson put it, he seemed "lazy" today.
Guardiola - For once, he made two (possibly three) big mistakes.
1. He should have put on Sylvinho for Abidal. Winger for winger. as simple as that. Puyol was inspiring, but I prefer him in the middle.
2. Gudjohnsen. He should have given Eto'o a few more minutes and then put on Bojan.
3. Maybe Busquets was a bad choice. Bojan would have been a little more active. Or take off Pique for Sylvinho and let Puyol move to the center again.
I hate saying this because I am a die-hard Barcelona fan but I am enjoying watching Real Madirt more than Barca lately. They are doing well. Congrats but I'm sure FC Barcelona will start playing better again. Every team goes through a bad patch and this is Barca's. They will probably get a scappy win against Atletico or tie and then they will start winning again. Also, Barcelona should stop the zone-marking during crosses and set-pieces. Only man-marking works for that.
I just hope that this game will be a lesson for our coach, because he made some bad choices in this game and in last weekend game against Betis. I love my Barca and I know that sometimes we must loose, and must be prepaired for gay teams like espanyol , and paid refs like the one tonight.
hey guys we still have 7 points mor than them :D
visca el Barca
pep's subs cost us. why would he play puyol rather than sylvinho?(unless he plans to start sylvinho against lyon) sylvinho is a natural left back, puyol isnt. and why bring in sergi and guddy and have sergi who is a midfielder play cf and have guddy who can play cf in the midfield? pep has done a superb job but his substitutions of late have been very odd
Lol im a real fan and just to let all u guys who like those crappy red and blue jerseys, real is destroying evrrything in its path, look at betis u guys 2-2 we 6-1 COME ON its over your hopes for the league title is over, very sad game for barça and its just going to keep piling up...
hello, madrid fan.
Come back two months later, ok?
No,I'm not mad at all. I'm smiling at you.
when will gaby be back?
abidal's loss is huge for us,but
we've already got through like this situation 1st half of the season.
we have 2 options for LB.
1.normally puyol or caceres
2.more atacking sylvinho(keita)
7pts advantage is still huge...calm down guyz.
I am a Barca Fun since i was 9 year Old , i remember everything since 1990 , this is happening many time in the Barca History , first Playing good , and always at the end it is a disaster , i hope this is not going to be repeated this year .
I don't have nothing to say , i did not understand Guardiolas strategy today .
The game looks like they are helping Espanyol do not get relegated .
They play 0:0 with the junior team in the Espanyol Stadium but can't beat them with the full squad in Camp Nou , that's horrible , unbelievable , i can't still believe we lost the game Today , same thing was with BETIS , strikers didn't want to score , they were all sleepy, playing like dead corps ...
I don't know this was disaster what we saw today on GolTV.
Hope they are not going to repeat this again .
Common Barca , wake up for God sake , don't make us sad ..
VIVA BARCA
I think I am a little calmer now....
It was a mistake to start all the first teamers in a game like this just before the CL match. It would have been better to leave them on the bench from where we could have made offensive substitutions.
Now we have players both tired and demoralised ahead of a big game.
Sylvinho has to be the first choice now on the left side. We can keep talking about how wonderful Messi, Xavi and Alves are but unless there is some measure of threat from the left flank there is just no space for these guys to play their games on the right.
Pep seems to be ignoring the potential of a few players. Henry would be our best option inside the box late on in a game when we descend to lobbing from anywhere into the box.
Bojan can be used more frequently simply because he really is all we have as an extra attacking option.
I like the fact that Pep prefers tactical substitutions to just throwing on attackers but really he needed to see our performance more pragmatically. We had lost all structure early in the 2nd half and in such a situation it probably would have been best to just throw players into the penalty area, hope for a piece of individual skill to save us.
Wish we had bought a LW in Jan.
and Messi, I cant understand why he has stopped going outside his marker. he runs the risk of being very predictable if is going to cut inside each and every single time. Also his body positioning and movement is such that its virtually impossible for him to release Alves while the defenders converge on him. He needs Xavi or someone else's help to find Alves. We would be a lot more effective if he could play Alves in directly.
hey guys I just read this news
http://www.goal.com/en/news/722/la-liga/2009/02/22/1121399/barcelona-line-up-valladolids-asenjo-as-valdes-replacement-report
Barcelona Line Up Valladolid's Asenjo As Valdes Replacement - Report
this would be good for us if it happend !
If I will say anything about this game, I will repeat all what I was saying all this week on three parts. I think I covered my opinion about it on advance whether its about players, Tactics, Coaching and fans reactions toward the team.
But now It will look less boring I guess.
Really not much to say, all my concerns came up together in one game after seeing it again and again happening one at a time, so no surprise.
- We were not smart enough to stay calm when the opponent wanted to pull us out of our game (as I expected in Roads Leading to Rome)thats our weakness.
- The card is not an excuse, lot of teams won finals with one guy less. Betis kept being balanced last week even when they had to make 2 early substitutions including the team leader and best player.
- We keep playing the same methods no matter what happens. Even After the red card, we had to understand this is a game to steal not to enjoy or to break scoring records. We kept pushing up despiritly and caught out of position. predicted right?
Just to say...Casillas made a more silly mistake than the one Valdes did, but for his luck Betis striker was not as smart as our old /now espanyol little Buddha to get advantage of it.
in his last interview Messi said: "Even if we lost one more game, we will still have 7 points advantage" I didn't like it but I didn't comment because I was boring enough this week talking about passives. Now we are 7 points, so lets not think about making it 4.
Atletico game is a make or break, if we win, the liga is over, if not then back to square one. being without Abidal, Keita, and Iniesta will complicate the team balance on the left flank, a new challenge to take.
i dont blame valdes for this game.valdes had a kinda good game except his mistake.everyone is always looking for an excuse to bash him.sure he is no casillas but he is good keeper.
there are 2 people i blame for this loss :
1st the referee,man was he wrong all the times,wtf was going on last night,messi got hit several times ,not one foul ,and a tackling (dangerous play) from the side with one foot red card ????wtf man go back to learning ref school...
2nd pep sorry but i think his inexpirience is starting to show now,i dont say he is bad or anything,but he didnt know how change the team in order to win this game (same happened previus week too,but then he had the messi card and 11 players),when we got the red card he made 3 bad choices for his subs(maybe 2 ,for busquets but remember how he usually gets yellows,and he already had one from the bench ,was it really that good to bring him in instead of sylvinho and put puyol cb and marquez dm?).maybe and thats a maybe he wanted to rest henry and eto for the cl class,but i dont excuse him for using guddy instead of bojan and having to play with busquets for striker.....
generally things like that dont happen twice(red card,really bad fault from the gk ),i still think the title is in our hands,but i dont want to read every week "now madrid has chance,we can do it,we will win the liga"from madrid players....
Ok, ok, ok..... Let´s calm down first and analyse the pros and cons.
The pros
Have you all thought about using some simple maths?
1.It´s only the second league match that we lost this season
2.It´s not possible that the players can continue with 5-0 performances all year long. It's a ''slow motion period'' for us and it´s normal to happen from time to time. Anyway, I believe that we will return to our usual high standards soon.
3. Espanyol yesterday definitely played ''street'' game, a hard, dirty and 100% physical game, that we never follow and sometimes I´m proud of it.
Now the cons
1. The ref. It was the biggest disappointment and affected our psychology. He chose to ignore that handballs and that nasty challenges by the Espanyol players. In addition he had a yellow card especially for every Barca player, even for the benched ones. Not to mention Keita´s red. I agree that apparently he was paid off.
2.Fatigue. Yesterday we had a really bad day. We just couldn´t work. As I said before it´s normal and be optimistic. Besides, some tactic and circulation changes must be made sooner or later. For example, I believe that Valdes certainly hadn´t had a first choice performance. Pinto would have done better. He may not be as quick-reactive as Valdes sometimes, but he´s more stable. As far as I can remember, he doesn´t get off his line nor passes the ball to the opponents! The other players had a mediocre performance. Also Busquets had been a bad choice.
3. Why are we always defeated by bottom table teams? In my opinion it´s simple. At first we are overconfident and secondly, we never play 100% physical game. (bottom table teams may have underdeveloped technique and skills, so they choose to run or hit and knock down the opposite players).
4. We must loose. Every team has to loose. No matter how hard they try to keep being grounded, this is the best way not to be soooo overconfident. The players and the manager should learn from their mistakes and turn on the team engine again.
As long as we have Valdes as a keeper
we will be weak at the back, this guy
doesn't deserve to be Barca goalkeeper we've been talking about this issue for years now enough is enough!
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