FC Barcelona went back to the top of La Liga with a 3-0 victory at home against Racing Santander. Lionel Messi scored twice on the night and Xavi scored once to give Barca a comfortable victory. Earlier on the night Real Madrid went on top with a 4-1 victory against Real Betis. We needed to respond to that and boy, we indeed did that without much sweat. With his goals tonight Messi has become the second highest goal scorer in the history of Barca. There was an expectation that Guardiola will hesitate to start Iniesta from start, but we were proven wrong. Guardiola lined up with Victor Valdes, Alves, Pique, Puyol, Maxwell, Thiago, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro, Villa and Messi. It was strange to see us playing with no holding midfielder, which meant if Racing put enough pressure in midfield we could have trouble.
The start wasn't good for us with Gerard Pique having to be replaced by Abidal with just 8 minutes on clock. That looked like yet another lay off for Pique. In the 11th minute Lionel Messi opened the scoring with a brilliant piece of magic combining well with Iniesta. The move was started by Messi who played a great pass into the box spotting Iniesta's run who did well to get to the ball and then slid it back to Messi. Messi then rounded two defenders in the box with a burst of pace and easily got past the keeper. In the 27th minute Xavi Hernandez headed Barca to a 2-0 lead. Iniesta slipped the ball to Pedro on the left who send in a great cross into the box, which was met by a jumping Xavi. In the 35th minute Puyol wasted a golden oppurtunity to put us 3-0 ahead when he failed to direct a beautiful cut back from Pedro into the goal. In the 40th minute Messi played David Villa through with a great through ball, Villa rounded off the keeper by taking the ball away but also cut the angle and could only hit the side netting of an open goal.
In 58th minute Messi wona free kick for Barcelona just outside the box, but hit straight at the keeper. In the 66th minute Messi went in an amazing dribble into the box and was brought down, but the referee failed to award the penalty. In the 68th minute Lionel Messi made the scoreline 3-0. Messi played the ball into Iniesta in the box, who did brilliantly well to get past two defenders but his shot hit the post, luckily for us Messi was there to finish off from teh rebound. In the 71st minute Guardiola took off Iniesta and brought in Keita. In the 73rd minute Adriano came in for Pedro Rodriguez. That two change meant Thiago moved into a much more attacking role and he surely loved that. In the 84th minute Abidal struck at goal with a brilliant over head kick but the keeper did well to hold onto it. In the 88th minute Messi won a free kick outside the box, but Villa blasted the kick high over the bar.
There were some early anxiety whether Racing will expose us for the lack of a holding midfielder. But they had very littl to offer in attack and rarely troubled our defense. It was yet another clinical performance with Messi leading the attack. There were as usual many positives, the biggest of them apart from Iniesta's come back was Pedro's emergence back to full form. He was deadly on the wings and did impressed everyone with extreme work rate. Iniesta really looked pissed off from missing some matches and was roaring through out the match. The only draw back was Pique's injury and everyone is praying for him to hava a quick recovery. Dani Alves had a quite night by his standard but rest of teh defense did really well whenever called upon. Abidal and Maxwell did really well on the attack. Xavi was once again his usual self and Villa was excellent with his work rate.
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