Search The Blog

Feb 17, 2013

  • Barca secures three points in a come back from behind victory against Granada
  • Lionel Messi scored twice, the second from an excellent free kick worth a watch.
Lionel Messi in action against Granada

Ok, this is the story of this match. In the absence of Xavi and Iniesta, Messi decided to play the play-maker role in the first half. He was doing brilliantly in that, but Alexis & co. were finding innovative ways to waste simple chances. So come the break, he decided to take the scoring task also on him - scored the equaliser in a tru centre forward fashion and scored the winner with a exquisite free kick, which left teh Granada keeper tranquilized. End of the story. In winning us the match Messi achieved yet another milestone(something he is doing so regularly, that people don't care for much) - he has scored 301 goal for Barca with this twin strike. Looking forward to the visit to Milan a number of players started from bench. The defense had Alves, Pique, Mascherano and Adriano. The midfield as expected was made of Thiago, Fabregas and Busquets. Pedro, Messi and Sanchez made the front line.

In the 4th minute Messi fed a brilliant pass to put Alexis through in the box, but as expected his first touch was very poor allowing the keeper to close down. Those kind of wasted chances has become the trademark of Alexis this season. In the 7th minute Nolito why he could be a huge threat for us. We allowed a cross to come from right, Nolito smartly moved away from his marker but his side-footed shot was luckily near to Valdes. In the 16th minute Adriano wasted another brilliant ball, Messi released the left-back on the left. With three Barca players in the middle, he only had to cut back the ball to any one of them. Instead it went straight to the keeper. In the 21st minute Tjiago flashed a header high over the bar from a measured Alves pass on the right. If Alexis was low on confidence before this match, this match was not at all helping in recovering from that. In the 24th minute he wasted another good chance. To make matters worse Granada took the lead from the very next attack. Once again we allowed the cross to come from the right again to Nolito, who cleverly cushioned the ball into Ighalo who just had to tap in. In the 29th minute Adriano fired a curling shot with his outside of his foot, that went just high of the corner. In the 38th minute Granada goal Keeper pulled off a stunning save to deny Messi. Alba came in after that for Adriano as he has picked up an injury. In the 44th minute we were seriously saved from going 2-0 down. Thiago hit a free kick at the edge of our box to the Granada center forward, had it not been some last ditch defending from Mascherano and Pique, we would have been in trouble.


In the 50th minute Lionel Messi scored his 300 Barca goal to equalise the scoreline and it came in an unlikely fashion. Cesc Fabregas attempted a long range shot from outside of the box, the keeper couldn't hold onto it and luckily for us it was Messi who reached to the rebound. In the 54th minute we thought we took the lead but was incorrectly ruled offside. In the 60th minute Roura brought in Tello for Alexis, who for the record wasted another good chance. In the 66th minute Pedro found out that his luck hasn't changed much this season, when his fierce shot from outside the box hit the inside of the post and stayed out. In the 72nd minute Iniesta came in for Pedro. In the 73rd minute Lionel Messi showed us why he is the best player in the world with a wonderfully taken free kick to put us 2-1 ahead. The free kick was not into the corner, but it had power, had swirl and dipped on the keeper, Tono who got a hand to it but it still went in. The reaction of Tono to that goal was worth a watch. In the 85th minute Iniesta released Tello in the box, but his shot went agonizingly high over the bar. In the 88th minute we had another scare from a cross from right, luckily Valdes was well positioned. In the first minute of injury time Valdes pulled off a brilliant save denying Granada the equaliser. In the 93rd minute Messi was denied off his hat-trick by Tono. The match ended with Iniesta hitting the side netting. The last minutes were some nervous affair but still we did well to hold on.

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.

Let's Get Connected: Twitter | Facebook

Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *

Random Post Script