- FC Barcelona made a winning start in the league under the new manager Tata Martino
- FC Barcelona raced to a Six Goal lead in the first half of the match.
FC Barcelona started their La Liga 2013-14 season in some style by putting seven unanswered goals past a hapless Levante side at the Camp Nou. With such a huge victory Barca would be confident of defending their La Liga title this season. Five goal scorers scored seven goals for Barca and all of them saw some brilliant team play. Sanchez, Cesc, Xavi scored one each whereas Pedro and Messi scored twice in quite a show of strength at the Camp Nou turf. As expected in a first match we were not up to 100%, misplacing some passes regularly, but the relentless pressing Tata Martino has once again got back into the team saw us regaining possession almost immediately. As I said in my FC Barcelona vs Levante Preview, this match was a glorious mismatch from the beginning. The line-up selected by Tata Martino was very much different from what everyone expected. Tata Martino decided not to start with both Messi and Neymar in his debut La Liga match. Instead Sanchez, Pedro and Messi formed the front line. Even in the midfield there were some suspense with Cesc, who recovered from injury just in time making into the lineup instead of Iniesta. - Cesc, Busquets and Xavi. That decision made sense especially with Iniesta been on International duty in midweek. The defense was more or less the expected one with Puyol unavailable - Alves, Mascherano, Pique and Adriano with Valdes guarding the goal. Pinto, Bartra, Alba, Song, Iniesta, Neymar and Tello made the bench.
It was a perfect start with the first goal coming in the 3rd minute. It was all classic one touch football - Pedro played the ball to Xavi in the middle who played a one touch ball playing Cesc on who unselfishly squared it to Alexis Sanchez to officially open the scoring for the season. Soon we were comfortably holding onto possession and dictating the pace. In the 10th minute Messi laid off the ball into Xavi at the edge of the box, who blasted high over the bar. But the goal didn't have to wait coming from Messi in the 13th minute. A beautiful link up between Messi and Cesc saw the entire Levante defense reduced to tatters, the ball was played to Pedro who sucked defenders to the left, Pedro played the ball to Messi in the middle and he made no mistake making it 2-0. Once again it was a classic Barca Team goal and the pressing on the ball were really one which was creating these spaces. In the 18th minute Xavi played a ball over the top putting Alexis onside, who had to take the ball facing the goal backwards and then blasted the ball wide. In the 24th minute we made it 3-0 with Dani Alves scoring with another brilliant team play. Messi started it stealing the ball from Navarro, Messi then played a beautiful back pass to Alves who played it to Cesc putting him onside, Cesc unselfishly tries to square it to Sanchez that was cleared but straight into the path of an on rushing Dani Alves and everyone knows Dani does not need any second invitation to make it 3-0.
In the 26th minute Pedro made it 4-0, this time it was more or less all about Messi. Messi took the ball in the middle of Levante half, set on his brilliant run drawing defenders and then played a sensational through ball which found Pedro. In the 33rd minute the Levante goalkeeper made a brilliant save to deny Xavi scoring from a free kick. In the 42nd minute Lionel Messi made it 5-0 from the spot. It was already difficult for Levante to hold face the onslaught; but it looked like they decided to make it more difficult. Pedro Lopez brought down Adriano in the box in a move which never made any sense - Adriano was facing away from goal and going out of the box. Whatever if they to make it more difficult, so be it. And it became more embarrassing for Levante with Xavi scoring the sixth one in the 45th minute. Once again it was a Cesc assist and a brilliant interplay between Xavi and Cesc. As I said in my preview that the Levante was no where near the last two season class and it showed and to make matters worse they had one more half to endure.
Compared to the first half Levante made a better start to the second winning a corner within a minute; but they made a mess with its delivery. In the 56th minute Pique saw his volley cleared off the line. In the 59th minute Pedro had a shot from outside the box almost brush the far post. In the 64th minute to the absolute horror of Levante players Neymar was brought in for Alexis Sanchez. The game had its pace dropped a bit but still Barca were winning dangerous free kicks, but failed to make the most of it. In the 71st minute Lionel Messi came out for Iniesta, something a lot of fans would love - seeing Messi getting some rest. In the 73rd minute Pedro made it 7-0 after Levante stupidly gave away the ball to Cesc with a horrible back pass and he rounded off the keeper and squared it to Pedro.
Without any doubt I would declare Cesc Fabregas to be the Man of The Match from tonight's performance. He was involved in every move of ours and played a part in almost five goals. The pressing which was the identity of our team under Guardiola was back in full form and that made life extra easy for us and doubly difficult for Levante. Levante were not able to catch breath in the first half, that was how we were pressing. Without any doubt this was the perfect start of our season, but have to admit that this Levante side could not give us anything to be judged by this performance.
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