FC Barcelona News

Barcelona secured their place in the next round of the Champions League last night with a disappointingly 1-1 draw against Basle at the Nou Camp, owing to the defeat of Shakhtar by Sporting.

Considering Basle made just 4 incursions into Barcelona’s half throughout the match this is another case of dominating the match without scoring, in which Barça specialised earlier in the season, but a much changed squad was largely to blame. However, Xavi and Messi were brought on in the 59th minute and instantly upped the level - after just 2 minutes Leo Messi scored to put Barcelona 1-0 ahead.

While the Barcelona attack continued, Basle were able to put the ball past Valdes in the 82nd minute.

Barcelona’s 4-1 defeat against Malaga in pouring rain on Saturday night has seen the Catalan team take the top spot in the league table this weekend, with their eleventh successive win. Xavi scored twice, with one each from Messi and Alves on the waterlogged pitch.

Elsewhere, previous league leaders Valencia lost 4-2 at home to Racing de Santander, dropping to forth place, Villarreal picked up 3 points in an away match against Athletic de Bilbao and Real Madrid easily beat Mallorca 2-0.

Barcelona’s next match is against Basle in the Champions League and following their overwhelming victory in the away leg, the expected victory will take them through to the next round.

Pep Guardiola must be happy to have kept Samuel Eto’o, after all the bad mouthing of him that went on in the summer. However, once again Eto’o showed he is at the top of his game, with a hat trick in Saturday’s match against Almeria that saw Barcelona win 5-0.

Thierry Henry and Dani Alves provided the other 2 goals and ten matches unbeaten takes them to second place in the table with 19 points, just one point behind Valencia, who drew on Sunday night.

Barcelona’s 5-0 victory against Basle last night demonstrates the progress made by the Catalan club since the beginning of the season and leaves them the only club in Champions League to have won all matches played. With Sporting Lisbon beating Shakhtar Donetsk 1-0, Barcelona are top of Group C by 3 points and a favourite to go through to the latter stages of the competition.

Of the 5 goals, 2 were scored by Bojan Krkic, plus one each for Messi, Busquets and Xavi.

Barcelona seem to have found their feet, with the 5th successive league victory assured by a Samuel Eto’o goal in the second half. Once again Barça dominated possession, although once again that begs the question - why not more goals?

They played without Xavi or Gudjohnsen, both of whom were injured while on international duty, and Leo Messi was rested due to fatigue after returning from South America after playing for Argentina in the World Cup qualifiers.

Athletic made an early attempt on the goal, which was saved by Victor Valdes, but Barça quickly turned up the heat with Eto’o and Iniesta attacking the Athletic goal. However, not everything went their way, with Keita stretchered off with a sprained thigh muscle - he’ll be out of action for 2 weeks - and then a free kick saved by Valdes but conceding a corner.

The second half started well, with Iniesta sprinting down the wing to shoot, and Barcelona’s domination and control of the ball began to show. In minute 63 Henry made a great pass through to Eto’o, who volleys the ball into the net.

It looked like Barcelona would make a second goal in the 81st minute, when Eto’o once more attacked the goal. But his shot went wide.

Despite that, Barcelona collected 3 points and taking 4th place in the league ahead of arch rivals Real Madrid.

Barcelona pulled out all the stops on Saturday night to utterly humiliate Atletico de Madrid. On the attack from the start, the first 5 minutes of the match saw Barça go 2 goals up, first with a goal by Marquez from a corner by Xavi and then a penalty by Eto’o after a foul on Messi. The Argentinean star then took the score to 3-0 in the 8^th minute with a free kick taken before Atletico had a chance to organise a defensive wall.

This marked a real change from previous matches, where there squad dominated possession but were unable to score as often as they should have. However, in the 13^th minute Atletico scored from the edge of the area, an excellent goal that Victor Valdes had no chance of stopping.

Although Eto’o had been quite ineffective for much of the time, the 17^th minute saw him dribble past the Atletico defence and keeper to take the score to 4-1 and in the 27^th minute Gudjohnsen scored after a shot from Iniesta rebounded off the post.

With the match almost certainly won in the first 30 minutes, Barcelona began to relax a little although possession remained high at 60 percent. However, both Iniesta and Messi in particular remained focused and while their efforts went unrewarded with more goals they were at least keeping up the pace.

After such an exciting first half the second half was always going to be an anticlimax. With Eto’o and Messi substituted for Henry and Bojan, the fresh players upped the pace again, and in the 73rd minute the final goal of the night was scored when Henry kicked the ball from the centre to Xavi, to Bojan, and then to Henry who had run forward, knocking the ball into the back of the net to make the final score 6-1.

Barcelona once again recovered from an almost certain defeat when Leo Messi scored 2 goals in the last few minutes of the match.

Visiting Shakhtar Donestsk in the Ukraine, Barcelona struggled to breach the home team’s defence and at the end of the first half things went badly wrong when Shakhtar put the ball past Valdes. Barcelona then struggled in the second half to do much until the 87th minute, when Messi equalized. He then claimed the three points in an excellent chip in injury time which defeated the home keeper.

FC Barcelona visited the Estadi Olimpic on Saturday night in what is likely to be the last Barcelona Derby to be played at the stadium. While Barça finished the match victorious, it was overshadowed by ugly scenes caused by some of the visiting supporters, who had been allowed to take fireworks into the stadium.

The match began with Barcelona and Espanyol fairly evenly matched for possession, but in the 20^th minute Espanyol got through a scrappy defense to score, with Victor Valdes taking a fall after an elbow from Luis Garcia. While this goal rattled Barcelona, their possession shot up to 70 percent. However, once again their domination of the ball failed to provide a much needed goal.

After Espanyol’s Nene received a second yellow card at the end of the first half, they began the second half with ten men, but it was during the 67th minute that crowd trouble began and overshadowed the football. Fireworks were thrown by visiting supporters onto the crowd below, forcing the referee to suspend play for 10 minutes. When play resumed, both sides seemed quite agitated, but Barcelona’s chance came, with a goal from Henri. However, it was Leo Messi who once again saved the day for Barça, with a goal right at the end of injury time ensuring Barcelona took 3 points away from the match.

Yesterday was La Merce, celebrating the patron saint of Barcelona and all around Barcelona were celebrations for this week long street party. There was time for celebrating at the Nou Camp too, with a 3-2 victory that almost saw disaster snatched from the jaws of victory, and also the fact that the rain of the previous two days had held off.

Pep Guardiola had said that each time he wore a suit his team won, and from now on always will, but whether that is the reason for Barcelona’s improved play is in some doubt. Barcelona kept high possession as always and dominated Betis. However, they also seemed to be gelling as a team, something lacking in previous matches.

The star of the night is surely Samuel Eto’o, who just a few short weeks ago was unwanted in the Barcelona squad. In minute 16, a pass from Messi to Eto’o at the edge of the area saw it hit the crossbar and into the net; and just 6 minutes later Messi ran forward into the area with the ball and passed it to a waiting Eto’o right in the goal mouth making the score 2-0.

The problem was after being 2 goals up the team seemed to drop the pace and while they still attacked, it was without much conviction for much of the time and allowing Betis several chances.

The second half saw Barcelona act like they’d already won the match, with some really lethargic play, and Betis on the attack. In the 57th minute a corner created from Victor Valdes knocking the ball out against a long shot from Betis saw some scrappy defending from Barcelona resulting in an indirect free kick in the area for dangerous play. Valdes’s requests to his team mates to strengthen a defensive wall went unheeded and the ball went straight through, and into the goal - Valdes was furious that it could have been avoided. And then in the 66th minute Betis charged forward and Jose Mari Romero knocked the ball past Valdes and into the net.

With Bojan brought in in place of Eto’o the pace increased again, and it looked like Barcelona had the spirit to keep fighting, which sometimes disappears. However it was Gudjohnsen who saved the day with a shot from inside the area and the squad playing as a team once again. At the side of the pitch Eto’o went to celebrate Gudjohnsen’s goal with Guardiola; while clearly Eto’o has let bygones be bygone, Guardiola look like he was going to punch the Cameroon striker before embracing him.

Sporting Gijon is a newcomer to Spain’s top division and were unlikely to have put on a strong show, but all the same Pep Guardiola must have slept a little more soundly after Barcelona’s comfortable 6-1 away victory - their first league victory of the season.

After beating Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League last week the squad’s morale seems to have been boosted and although one of the goals was an own goal by Gijon, Messi scored twice, with Xavi, Eti’o and Iniesta all adding to the tally.

The match started in what is becoming the common pattern of high possession by Barça, who are then unable to do anything with the ball. However, they were able to keep up the pace so that in the 27th minute came the first goal from Xavi. Barcelona’s high possession resulted in 11 corners in the first half hour - the eleventh corner being the opening to Barcelona’s second goal of the night, scored by Eto’o.

The start of the second half saw an own goal by Gijon, followed by a goal in Gijon’s favour in the 50th minute. However, any hope for the home team was lost when Gerard was sent off for a foul on Messi. With Gijon down to ten men, Barcelona’s dominance became completely overwhelming, and the result was a succession of goals.

While this is a good result for Barcelona - and perhaps the turning point for Guardiola - Gijon is easily the weakest team on La Liga and with Barcelona playing Betis on Wednesday, before visiting Espanyol next weekend there could be some further shocks ahead.

LA LIGA 2008/2009