A Good Victory : Villareal-0,Barcelona-0

Just completed watching the highlights of the game and have to admit that the match looked like having more memorable moments than I expected. But whatever a goal less draw at El Madrigal will be as good as a victory only if Barcelona can finish their good work in the return leg. I believe they can do it.

The first Barcelona attack came in the fifth minute, when Iniesta received a cross from Deco. Iniesta dribbled into the the box well and crowded by a bunch of defenders, in the mayhem the ball reached Henry who could only place the ball just wide of the post. Villareal responded in the 16th minute with Nihat shooting wide of the Goal. In the 20th minute Victor Valdez, who was Barcelona's best player on fieldtheir produced a spectacular save from a tremendous long range effort from Rossi. The majority of the first half remained with Villareal, with Barcelona attempting to break the Villareal defence with some cut through pass. In the 18th minue oone of such pass found Giovanni, who tried to curl the ball towards the far post. He did curl the ball, but never had any power to get past the Villareal Goalkeeper. In the 37th minute Valdez has to produce another magnificient save inorder to deny Villareal going one up in the tie. Pires cross was beautifully headed down and set for final assault but Nihat for my view hit too straigt to Valdez. In the next minute Cazorla attempted a long range shot on goal which went just high, but Valdez had that covered too.

Barcelona brought in Messi in place of Giovanni in the start of second half and that started changing the game in favour of Barcelona a little. In the 51st minute barcelona started producing a glimpse of the vintage quick feet attacking style with so many players getting involved with their quick touch but the Villareal defense held their fort. In the 62nd minute Iniesta was denied by a wonderful save by Villareal Goalie, Diego Lopez. Iniesta had a great evening and that one looked like going in. By this time Messi started to show a glimpse of what we were missing for sometime. As a contrast to first half, villareal never had any decent chance till the 75th minute when Valdez threw up another fine save from Senna. Subsequently Barcelona started attacking more and resulted in Iniesta and Bojan both shooting wide in a space of two minutes. Barcelona ended the game as usual with a small fright with Valdes again saving Nihat's free kick.

All in all it was a very good match and a much betetr result also. The only negative point would be Messi trying to score using his hand. The defense looked like solid, the attacking stict looks like coming back and Messi is surely coming back actually he is almost there.

Highlights Of The Match

Gearing Up for A Tough Task

El Madrigal stadium does not bring happy memories to many teams, especially Barcelona who failed to win there the last two times. The funniest fact is that Frank Rijkaard has never won there, the only time Barcelona has won there after he became the coach - Hen Cate was in charge. Villarreal is the most improved side in La Liga this season. Last season they were not at their best, but the last week 3-0 thrashing of Valencia should put them in the right set of mind (May be there is a curse associated with Valencia - Any team thrashes them will lose the subsequent game(remember El-Classico), I hope ;-) ).

As Rijkaard said in the pre match press conference "They are a team that can wait for to play in their half before launching counter-attacks or can come out and attack you from the first minute". They will be very tough opponent to deal with especially at home. As Lionel Messi said "We have to keep the return leg in mind when we play”. This Leg also has to be planned well like the Sevilla one. Barcelona definitely has an advantage with playing the return leg at home. Why not to use that advantage to full benefit? A 0-0, 1-1 or at worst 1-0 result will not do any harm to Barcelona's effort to make it to the semifinals.

The starting line up should give Barcelona a definite head ache. Deco should definitely be a no-no in the starting eleven. Marquez or Edmilson (I prefer Marquez as Edmilson returned just from injury) has to return back as DM as they will be much better equipped to deal with Villarreal than Iniesta in that position. Xavi is expected to make the lineup, but will there be place for Iniesta will be a question. I expect Iniesta to join the midfield as he gives a much better attacking option there. I would prefer Henry to start in the left with Bojan in the centre and Messi at far right. If Henry starts in centre then we can have Iniesta taking up that left position and Gudjonsen making up the midfield trio. Another big question is about who will start at the Goal- my preference will be Valdes as El Madrigal will be a very tricky place to give a new Goal keeper his debut.

There were some noises made about Giovanni’s attitude in the last match (mostly toward end which ended in some audience booing him) - get over it guys. He is just a kid, he needs to be protected and encouraged. It was wrong to start with two of the youngsters in the lineup, we cannot expect them to provide the attacking stint when the more known seniors were failing, at least this early in their career.

European Clubs Association - Killing National Football

UEFA on 21st January 2008 announced the creation of the European Club Association (ECA), a move it said would be the start of a new era of the game. "The creation of the ECA paves the way for harmony to return to football between the governing bodies and the clubs," said UEFA, the governing body of European football.

What is the sole aim of creating the European Club Association - Increase the buying power of Clubs when dealing with FIFA. And in the initial rounds the dominating clubs have won the round against FIFA. UEFA looks like very cleverly sided with ECA to isolate FIFA in the whole process. ECA has made some agreements with FIFA and UEFA about international matches. The first is the agreement with UEFA which involves the distribution of an amount from UEFA European Championship to these clubs. The amount will be approximately 4000 euros per day per player basis. Actually there was a big fight between clubs and FIFA in dealing with players getting injured in international duties earlier. Now this clause resolves that, as the clubs will be compensated for that through this method. This makes sure that the big clubs make huge amount of money whereas the smaller clubs make nothing. The irony will be that this clause will negate the effect of the smaller clubs in the development of these stars. For example, lets take the case of Wayne Rooney - he spent his youth years at Everton, indeed Everton invested on him when he was nothing. Now he may be a property of Manchester United, but nobody can deny Everton's share in creating such a player. From a National Association point of view it is these comparatively smaller clubs which unearths talents for the big guns to exploit. So from a National Association point of view it is these clubs that needed to be rewarded more than the greedy bigger ones.

The second agreement is the most disturbing - National teams will be allowed to call up each player for no more than one friendly outside Europe. Here I believe that UEFA sided with ECA to isolate the other continent's National association. Obviously most of the friendlies involving UEFA countries will be in Europe and therefore they will not be least bothered. Nic from FCBNews.com says : this will benefit players like Ronaldinho and Messi who are sometimes made to travel across the Atlantic or further to play in meaningless friendly games. First of all these friendlies are not some meaningless games. These are the best way the coach can find the best starting eleven who gels well. If Thierry Henry can take this much time to settle in Barcelona line up, think about the hardships of National team coaches who has to find the ideal line up through this so called meaning less friendlies. Now you are taking those friendlies away from them, What they are now supposed to do? I see this as the clubs attempt to kill the big events of national importance like the World Cups and Euros. A team which cannot gel well will not play good football, and incidentally more viewers will prefer to watch club football than National teams’ performance.

The third decision is to change the days in which International matches are played, I have no objection to it. But the fourth is reducing the size of qualifying groups for European championship. This will limit the chances for the smaller national association to match with the big guns. Everybody is complaining that there is too much International football - but the fact is that there is too much club football.

I would love to see national associations taking some bold steps. If a player is reluctant to represent National side, let him go. Hundreds have come before him and hundreds will come after him. For instance, Argentinean football has survived long before Messi came and will survive after him. It should be who decides whether he wants to be a part of it.