FC Barcelona extended their winning streak with a comprehensive five goal victory against Champions League minows FC Basel. Victor Valdes should be pleased to be successful in keeping a clean sheet for the second game in succession. Actually, if anyone have threatened to deny a clean sheet it was Valdes himself. Guardiola surprised everyone with his team selection. Hleb, Bojan and Messi started as the attacking trio. The midfield was made up of Xavi, Busquests and Toure and the back four saw Marquez and Sylvinho coming in to pair with Alves and Puyol. Lionel Messi who was rested in the last match was active throughout and is looking like to spearhead the Barca challenge this season.FC Barcelona took charge of the game early in the first half. In the 4th minute Alves produce a great no-look pass to find Messi, who had the easiest of tapping to take Barca 1-0 ahead. The move was started with Messi giving the ball to Alves and timed his run; but the defense was surprised by Alves who looked the other way when he produce the cross. That was a Ronaldinho trade-mark pass. That early goal made sure that Basel could only do the catch up game for the rest of the game. In the 8th minute Bojan put the ball in the back of net but was rightly adjudged offsied. Then in the 15th minute Busquests scored his first Champions League goal when he latched on to an excellent cross from Xavi. In the 18th minute Basel Goal Keeper Costanzo denied Xavi from scoring off a Alexander Hleb corner at the near post. FC Barcelona by now was raiding FC Basel goal at alarming intervals. In the 20th minute Messi shoot wide after a good one-two with Bojan. Then in the 22nd minute Bojan made the scoreline 3-0 with an excellent finish from outside the box. Bojan received the ball and moved to his right to make some space and fires the ball perfectly to the far right corner of the goal. In the 30th minute Alves tremendous shot was blocked by Costanzo; Messi started the ball by spreading the ball to Hleb in the far left of the pitch, Messi then moved to the middle and plays a wonderful one-two with Hleb; Hleb passed the ball to Bojan whose effort was saved by defense but the rebound was placed in Alves's path by Busquests. In the 34th minute Bojna missed the most simplest of chance when he shot wide of an open goal after a header from the Xavi corner was saved. FC Barcelona should have had a penalty a minute before after a move which resulted in the corner. In the 37th minute Hleb's shot was saved by Costanzo; there was no power on that ball but the placement was good.
In the second half everyone expected FC Barcelona to cool off a bit. But Barca players had another plans. In the 46th minute Bojan made the scoreline 4-0 from a counter-attack; Busquests put Bojan ahead of the defense with an inch-perfect pass. Two minutes later Xavi made it 5-0; Messi laid the ball to Xavi between defenders leg just outside the box; Xavi placed the ball perfectly to the far corner to cap a remarkable performance. In the 52nd minute Marquez was taken off and was replaced by caceres. Barcelona should have scored another in the 55th minute when Bojan chipped high after rounding off defenders and Goal Keeper. In the 56th minute Guardiola replaced Xavi with Henry. In the 60th minute a rare atatck from Basel had to be cleared by defense. In the 63rd minute Basel again threatened the Barca defense but they were outdone by the lack of own players in Barca goal. Towards the ned Henry midded a decent chance and Valdes had to make a good save to keep the clean sheet.
Overall the performance was good. But FC Barcelona was helped by the fact that Basel's defense was practically non-existent throughout the match. Valdes did make some usual misses but none was costly. FC Basel were no match to FC Barcelona; that gave Guardiola the confidence to replace Xavi with henry in the match. FC Basel would be in for real tough time at Camp Nou in two weeks time.
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