FC Barcelona cut the lead on the top of the league to five points with a rather scrappy 5-3 win. Real madrid will have a chance to extend the lead, but for the time being we are five points below them. A hat-trick from Lionel Messi and one each from Xavi and Tello gave us a a deserving victory. It was a bit scrappy in some sense - we lead 2-0 with Granada completely out of the picture, then let them come back and make teh scoreline 2-2 but we woke up enough to finish off the game. All the eyes were on Messi building into this match. A recently conducted study has revealed that Cesar, the club's official top scorer has only scored 232 goals instead of the earlier believed 235. That meant Messi needed only one more goal to equalise that tally. The starting eleven selected by Guardiola was Valdes, Alves, Pique, Puyol, Adriano, Keita, Thiago, Xavi, Sanchez, Messi and Cuenca. Barca players lined up with "Fabrice. We are with you" T-Shirt showing their support for the Bolton player Fabrice Muamba, whose condition is said to be improving at the moment. Granada players lined up with a message showing their support for Eric Abidal, our King.
Granada started pressing high up the pitch from the start. In the very first minute they forced Alves into a rather strange clearance in the box, giving the ball to a Granada player who flashed a shot wide off Valdes' post. But that lasted very litt;e as Xavi put us ahead in the 4th minute. Cuenca sent in a great cross finding Messi, who headed it setting up Xavi for a brilliant finish. We scored from literally from our first shot on target. In the 11th minute Lionel Messi forced a save from the keeper from the edge of the box.
In the 17th minute Messi equalised Cesar's record after scoring from another Cuenca cross to make the scoreline 2-0. He has equalled Cesar's record of 232 goals and he is still just 24. There wasn't any more serious action i the rest of the half and we went into the break with comfortably sitting on 2-0.
Guardiola brought in Mascherano for Adriano at the start of the second half. In the 53rd minute Cuenca found Messi in the box with a neat low cross but Messi could only flash his shot wide. In the 55th minute Granada pulled one goal back from a set piece when Mainz rose above all to meet the free kick in the box. In the 59th minute Pique saw his header from xavi free kick go straight at the keeper. In the 60th minute it all got worse for Barca with referee giving a penalty in Granada's favor, which looked like a seriously flawed decision. From 2-0 down, the scoreline became 2-2 with Siquiera converting the penalty. In the 67th minute Lionel Messi restored the elad with a brilliant chip over the keeper. It was a trademark Lionel Messi dink over the keeper's head from a Dani Alves ball. With that goal Messi has become the leading goal scorer for Barca in official matches. In the 71st minute Tello and Iniesta came in for Sanchez and Thiago respectively. In the 76th minute Messi played a brilliant through ball spotting tello's run into box, but his first touch let him down. In the 78th minute we had another scare with mascherano giving the ball away ina dangerous player, luckily keita was on hand to deflect the danger. In the 82nd minute Tello scored to make it 4-2 following a superb buildup by Iniesta and Messi. Iniesta slipped a ball to Messi in the box, Messi's shot cum cross was blocked by the keeper and the rebound fell to tello, who curled it into the far corner. In the 86th minute Lionel Messi completed his hat-trick after latching on to a brilliant through ball by Alves into the box and rounding off the keepr simply like that. In the 88th minute Dani Alves conceded a penalty when he accidently handled the ball in the box. That resulted in a second booking and was red-carded and he will be missing next week match. Siqueira converted the penalty calmly to make the scoreline 5-3.
It was a night for Lionel messi to create history, and he did just that in some style. A hat-trick saw him officially becoming the leading goal scorer in the club's history. Guardiola but have more head-aches to deal with Alves getting send off. He was very poor defensively but linked up well with Messi in attack. Now with already the back line stretched he may have to look to slot in Montoyo for the match against Mallorca in the weekend. It wasn't the greatest of night and it was explained by the fact that Granada became the first team to score three at camp Nou this season. But in the end three points were what mattered.
All About FC Barcelona
AllAboutFCBarcelona.com is a Blog dedicated to the Most prestigous Club in the world, FC Barcelona by an ardent fan. Here I discuss about the Latest happening surrounding our Club and present my Views about the same.
Liked the Post? Spread the Word>>>
