It was great to see Barca making a winning start to a new season. Maybe it became much more sweeter with Real Madrid dropping two points on the opening week. Two points lead at this stage is not much but it may help in increasing the pressure on Real Madrid and their much celebrated new coach. The match itself saw quite a strange starting line-up. But it may be a sign of things to come. Many Barca fans have gone over board with their praise for the team. But for me the first half of the match was extremely poor. We were lucky enough to get an early break and then the second goal also was from the Racing custodian's mistake. We got the goals at the right times and that means that were were never troubled throughout the match. One have to admit the fact that Racing was a very poor in the match and lacked seriously interms of creativity while going forward. i haven't seen a match in which Barca players miss placed so much passes in the first half. But then we have to admit that its the first match of the season and thing will definitely get better once more games are played. The good news is Messi looked absolutely brilliant and that should remove all our anxieties.
Guardiola started with a strange centre back pairing of Pique and Abidal. I mean we have seen them together in practice matches, but never in a real scenario. But looks like with the arrival of Adriano, Guardiola wants to see Abidal as a cover for the centre Back position also. Maxwell and Alves occupied the usual fullback position. the rest of the squad was pretty much as expected. The first goal came after a bit of pressure from Racing. Iniesta recieved the pass in the opposition half, turned around and released Messi who did wonderfully great in both accelerating ahead of the defense and also with the beautiful chipped finish. The second goal happened after the goal keeper's clearance fell onto Iniesta who made no mistake with such a gold plated oppurtunity. Villa had a goal disallowed in the last minute of the half. Eventually he got the goal he deserved in the second half with a stunning header from a even more beautifu Alves cross.
The second half performance was a much more improved performance especially compared to the first half. First half saw we regularly struggling to keep possession. Too many balls we getting through the middle and our controlled possession football were nowhere. I am not much confident with the choice of Abidal as a centre back. In emergency cases, we can deal with the same but his postioning sense looked not that great. even Pique had terrible moments. Without any doubt Messi was the best player on the picth. But I was seriously disappointed with Xavi's performance. He was way below par and most of the part I though he played too deep. That prevented him from linking with Iniesta and Messi. Meanwhile Iniesta had an good second half. The first half saw him score but his first touch throughout the half was patchy. In the second half with Xavi substituted, Iniesta took control and gave a pretty decent performance. Villa made his official La Liga debut for Barca as expected and churned up a decent performance. His understanding with Messi looked good.
Below is the highlights of the match for you all to enjoy.
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