This evening at 9:00 pm bt,
Barcelona plays 27th league game of the season against Almería.
Barcelona plays 27th league game of the season against Almería.
Almería squad list:
Diego Alves y Esteban, Bruno, Acasiete, Carlos García, Pellerano, Chico, Mané, Iriney, Juanito, Soriano, Corona, Juanma Ortiz, Ortiz, Negredo, Kalu Uche, Crusat, Piatti
Barcelona squad list:
Valdés, Pinto, Alves, Piqué, Márquez, Cáceres, Sylvinho, Xavi, Víctor Sánchez, Touré, Busquets, Keita, Gudjohsen, Iniesta, Messi, Eto'o, Bojan, Henry, Hleb
Read a match preview here
Re-live the first round game here
!!! LIVE MATCH CHAT !!!
From two hours before until two hours after the game you can join a match chat (read more here)
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
17 comments:
We gotta win this. I hope Bojan starts this one. I believe pep will either start with a strong lineup (messi eto henry xavi/iniesta) and ask the players to go all out and try to score goals early to kill the game then rest them giving Bojan/hleb/Kieta or guddie a chance.
Or he will start with some B players resting Iniesta/xavi, Henry/eto'o and maybe Messi and see how it goes. If things don't go well bring in the big guns.
Personally I prefer the first option because I don't think Almeria will be easy at home and we all saw what happened against Betis when Messi didn't start. We can't afford not to get the 3 points as RM are only 3 points below us now.
i was gonna talk mad shit during half time about bojan's flaccid performance...but luckily for him(& me)my beer was warm & i had to get a fresh one. i'm impressed with bojan's two goals in the second half but still think he should be playing on the flanks & not as the center forward. overall a nice game to watch.
Pique was brilliant today.. my MOTM
Vj, you are a truly crazy person. Iniesta was clearly MoM, no doubt about it. Pique's wasted chance says it all about him today.
pique was great tonight,also iniesta,messi as always.
i think pique is getting better and better.
good eco-football.
not a fun game,but we need kind of boring game sometimes.
Is it just me or is Pique turning into a real knucklehead? There can be no doubt whatsoever that Iniesta was superior to Pique tonight!
Toure was my MOTM. It was a solid performance from the defense thanks to Toure who covered numerous times for Sylvinho and Alves.
Pep did everything right. Starting enough of the Big Guns to ensure a win while also giving Bojan a chance to get among the goals. Keita spent most of his time in the opposition box until we got the goals and then dropped back into mid.
Xavi and Iniesta looked tired but put in a solid performance. Formation looked more like a 4-4-2 for most part. Iniesta has to get used to playing on the wing again.
Bojan got his first league goals which is great for the kid. The movement of all the players across the pitch was great.
Keita put in a good performance but looking at him play one gets the impression he needs to get stronger. Bojan is not strong but he has better balance. Keita looks a little weak and off-balance while making passes and generally while in possession of the ball. I hope he can stay away from injury.
I agree with kamikaze on the weakness of Keita. He gets brushed aside like he was a little girl sometimes. That is unacceptable IMO. He needs to bulk up. But kamikaze is totally wrong when it comes to Iniesta's play today. He was great, there can be no doubt about that. Great by Pep today too. He is fantastic.
did anyone notice bojan after his first goal? he celebrated with a slide and turned around expecting many of his teammates to be behind him but nobody was there...his facial reaction was priceless. but cant complain about a cf who scores two goals! decent game from us albeit we were just going through the motions
Noticed that... However, on the 2nd goal, they swarmed him.
I think this game proves that Bojan can be able to lead the trident next year. I really don't see a point in Benzema or Aguero. I do think that we need a target striker like Llorente and Guiza though
I think Ramen is absolutely correct. Aguero is a dwarf and thus; not needed. What we need is someone with the ability to head the ball, thus causing dangers from crosses and corners (which we always get a ton of).
The truth is that when the opposition defend with 11 men, it is difficult to unluck the defense. What is then needed is 4 things:
- Flank play (use the whole width of the pitch, not crowd towards the middle)
- Long shot ability (missiles from outside the area is hard to defend against even with 11 men in defense)
- Utilize corners better (being effective on corners is key against defensive teams)
- Free kicks (impossible to defend against a good free kick taker)
These are the aspects that would make it difficult for any defensive team. Do we feel that we have these aspects covered in our attacking game? This is something people here should think about.
I thought Iniesta played great but I was just referring to how deep he kept dropping to pick up the ball when I said he needs to get used to playing on the wings again.
I also second Ramen's choice of Llorente as a target man this summer to give us more options and variations in attack. Right now, we are practically walking the ball into the goal every time.
It was one of the games that satisfied me most.
I think -probably- for the first time this season, we intentionally entered the game without pushing ourselves high on the pitch as usual.
when losing the ball, we were POSITIONING ourselves in the midfield THEN starting to hunt for the ball, something we never did before if I remember well.
Thats one of the things that caught Almeria by surprise actually. They prepared themselves for a crowded own inbox and surrounding. And prepared Crusat, Uche, and Negredo for the counter attacks job. But the midfield was closed in this game Specially with Iniesta acting as a Left midfielder when we lose the ball assisting sylvinho deep (again, rather than pushing up exposing the old guy flank), Keita dropping back (though he needs to drink more Gennaro Gattuso energy drinks), Alves was running back to position instead of pressuring up, Xavi started his ball hunting from the middle as well, and only Messi and "Bojan..hm.." were instructed to press on the defense and close passing outlets to delay the ball movement, all that was creating a cone for Almeria players where if they hooked in they will get Yaya in the center...hm...thanks but no thanx!
you can see that unlike other games, The opponents didn't run the ball through our midfield to our box. The 2 or three counters they made were either through long pass or a pass on the sideline.
This slight change made them more helpless, and we got the least energy consuming three pints we ever got this season, which was the objective from the start.
Guardiola made a good move between the two halves, instructing Messi to attack more from the center. As I hoped him to do in my short visit to the chat application between the two halves.
The other interesting thing was how calm we were during the game. The players performance made us forget that we were only 3 points infront of RM when the game started. I was really impressed by the confident display, this was one of the games that u feel confident you will end the game with 3 more points in ur basket, I also told you not to worry, specially when Noubarca was having a tear in his eye because the fans were not patient enough after the first half lol
This was a very mature performance, we knew what we needed, and we knew we are going to get it. Keep in mind that Almeria hunted points from RM, Atletico, and Valencia on their own field. So no it was not "Just almeria".
We need to play this style more often (ok beside our attractive ultra offense style). We were always facing the ball holder in this game rather than running after him. Thats very important. because again, the energy consumption must always be a priority.
Let me tell you this: We were able to win by 5 goals last night (or lets say we were able to try to win by 5), we were able to start our best selection. We didn't, as guardiola reads my articles :P. We started the players who can get us the 3 points, and played the way we can get them. And unlike lot of other games, we had it in the back of our minds that: If needed, we have an Eto'o and a henry on the bench to get in, and they can change the game. I missed this feeling.
So, not only henry was a super-sub option today, but also Eto'o...Cool!
@Kami: Iniesta was dropping back based on the coach instructions. The fans are not used to this, but i hope we play this kind of games more often so we get used to it, thats the champions maturity.
Guardiola, thumbs up!
Opps...my Internet died last night, so I wasn't able to put here the contest I put on the offside after the game (pep we need to figure out how to make it possible to comment thru mobile:) )
How many passes we exchanged before we scored our second goal.
The one who answer, will be able to comment on the blog for free for the following month of march!
@ramzi: 22 passes from the time the cam panned to that girl on the stand eating peanuts lol :p
great game btw. i liked how pep orchestrated this one. we played it smart and cool and it worked! kudos to bojan for keeping a cool head and scoring past almeria's overachieving gk lol. i think maybe alves heard we're looking for a gk and decided to show off to pep :D
Iniesta = MOTM!
~noob~
Hey Anony.. plz go and watch the match once again.. notice how Pique almost single-handedly nullified their attack.. notice how he won almost all of the lobbed balls coming onto our area.. Due to him, Negredo and Uche were largely anonymous.. and he even stormed the box very well.. his header was brilliant, had it not been for their superhuman goalie, it would have been Pique who'd have opened the scoring..
Now lets talk about Iniesta.. he was good yesterday, but not up to his high standards.. notice the lack of mazy runs and he kept the ball way too long.. still he produced quite good passes but IMO he was clearly tired..
Bojan was invisible till the goal but credit to him for displaying good goal poaching instincts - trademarks of a fine striker to be..
And next time before calling someone crazy, back up your arguments with valid points..
21 Ramzi (got it from Kxevin's match report :))
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