- Barca scored four goals against Levante
- Iniesta scored one and assisted all three other goals of the night.
FC Barcelona kept their three point lead on top of the league with a brilliant 4-0 victory against Levante. The three point lead is brilliant but many Barca fans had another statistics in their mind - 11 points. That is the difference between Barca and Real madrid on the La Liga table right now. The match was all about Iniesta, who scored one and assited all other goals. Everyone knew that this one would be a very difficult task from the moment we looked at the fixtures. With Real Madrid losing yersternight it became more crucial. Even though Real Madrid lost, Atletico won and were equal to us in points at the start of the match. David Villa was ruled out of this encounter due to an injury. Vilanova went with the line-up of Valdes, Alves, Pique, Puyol, Alba, Xavi, Busquets, Cesc, Pedro, Messi and Iniesta. The bench had Pinto, Montoya, Mascherano, Adriano, Song, Thiago and Tello.
The match started in a very slow fashion with we controlling almost all the possession, and Levante holding their fort intact. But there were a couple of occasion in the first ten minutes when Martins showed his pace on counter and exposed Puyol completely. In the 13th minute Valdes had to pull out a great diving save to deny Barkero's curing effort. In the 14th minute Alves had to be replaced with Montoya after the Brazilian was injured. With Montoya coming in, the entire playing eleven was made of La Masia products. In then 22nd minute Messi saw why he is the Best player in the World. With a single turn he skipped past of two Levante markers but the final shot went agonizing wide of the post. In the 24th minute Xavi tried a shot from outside box, which was more of a hopeful attempt. Levante was keeping it pretty narrow in the middle and we were having little space to exploit in middle. In the 42nd minute a series of interchange between Iniesta, Messi and Alba released Alba on the bylane, but his cut back was cleared for the corner. From the resulting corner, Pique who was unmarked headed wide in front of the ball. We were struggling to break down a well organised Levante defense. But towards the end of first half, Messi was coming more into the game and that was creating some clear chances.
It started perfectly for Barca after the break with Messi scoring, chipping the ball over an on rushing keeper to break the deadlock. Messi made a great run between four defenders and Iniesta found him with a perfect pass. Levante switched off for a moment after break and we made them pay. That goal shocked them and they lost their focus and discipline after that. In the 52nd minute Iniesta and Messi combined once again for creating Messi's second goal taking the scoreline to 2-0. It was just magical, Iniesta dribbled past the defender on the line and cut the ball back to Messi, who stabbed the ball into the net. It was as if Iniesta and messi were in a race to see who will become the Player of the Match. But Iniesta made that honour all his in the 57th minute.Iniesta got into the score sheet, making the scoreline 3-0 with a brilliant strike from the edge of box. After receiving the ball from pedro, he thundered a shot on the underside of crossbar giving the keeper no chance Iniesta was not yet done. In the 63rd minute Iniesta created another goal, this time for Fabregas. Iniesta slipped in the ball to Cesc from left, Fabregas rounded off the keeper from a tight angle and finished off just like that.In the 66th minute Valdes made a one on one save off Martins after our defense put him through with a gift off a pass. In the 68th minute Pedro flashed a shot wide off far post. In the 75th minute Adriano came in for Alba. In the 78th minute Thiago came in for Xavi Hernandez. In the 86th minute the referee gave a penalty against Puyol for handling, which was very harsh. But Valdes was in no mood to give up that clean sheet. He blocked the fist shot and threw himself on the rebound attempt to keep the score line 4-0.
The 4-0 scoreline was very harsh on Levante, there is no doubt of that. Against teams like Levante, we had to strike them when they have lowered their defense a bit. Iniesta knew that and selected the start of second half to do that. Messi and Iniesta came out of half completely on fire and destroyed Levante in 11 minutes. That's the final story of the match.
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