Accepting the Inevitable

With the last night draw against Athletic Bilbao, Barcelona quest for another Spanish League title has taken a serious setback. If anything hurts more is the fact that Real Madrid won against Villareal yesterday. Barcelona failed to hold on to the lead and perished for their goal scoring nuances. mathematically barcelona is still in the hunt even with the huge nine point gap between the leaders. And there have been a huge sense of optimism among Barcelona fans (saw it in the many barcelona blogs i visit) about getting the job done this season. Barcelona have no one else to blame for the mess they are in now. They started the season without much purpose and are catching up with Madrid for their lack of effort and enthusiasm. Actually from last January Barcelona are desperately trying to catch up with Real Madrid, a team many pundits wrote off some season ago.

Barcelona will be trying their best to keep the league alive till 7th of May, when they play Real Madrid at Bernebeu. For that they need the help of their fellow clubs in the league to cut down Madrid's lead to three points by that time. If that happen and Barcelona wins every other game left in this season, they have a real chance as everything will depend on the El Classico at Bernebeu. One thing that works against the above mentioned possibility is Barcelona's form this season. For a brief period in the start of the year they looked really compact and confident. But with Eto's departure for African Nations cup everything started to fall over again. Many fans have complained about the African Nations cup and how its going to hurt us. But those sentiments is never justified as it is impossible to explain a star studded team like Barcelona failing to put up a decent show in the absence of two of their stars.

Another factor which will work against barcelona is the fact that they still remain in three competitions - Champions League, Copa Del Rey and La Liga. The hectic schedule will take a heavy toll on the Barcelona players - already rusty and out of form. The third factor is Madrid's form this season. they may not have looked convincing, they may not have thrashed their opponents, Cassilas may have been making an average of 8-10 exotic saves per match but they look like more organised and more importantly they doesn't seem to be in a mood to drop any points. They are already out of Copa Del Rey and that means they only have two tournaments to concentrate.

The fourth factor is the fact that Barcelona has to play Sevilla, Zaragoza, Athletico Madrid and Real Madrid away from home and Getafe and Espanyol (two clubs which have a history of hurting Barcelona) in home in coming weeks. Whereas Real Madrid will be playing the Getafe, Sevilla, Valencia,Deprtivo (Clubs which can help Barcelona) at home and zaragoza away from home. Zaragoza have in the past hurt Real Madrid, but the match is in 36th week and it might be too late by then. So basically Barcelona may be chasing a losing race over here. Barcelona's greatest oppurtunity lies this season in Copa Del Rey. La Liga might be over for them, if they stop concentrating more on La Liga, they could win the Copa Del Rey and put up an impressive show in Champions League (who knows we can win that too).

But all this is for Rijkaard to think upon. He is the Boss and he have to take an immediate decision. But as fan i would love to see them fight for all the trophies, but then somewhere in my brain some voices echoes the above mentioned ideas. May be my brain is dump, many say so and i hope that is true in this instance.

Losing More Grounds on the Champions

Barcelona inherent lack of ability to kill the match off came back to haunt in the last quarter of the match against Bilbao. Courtesy of this draw they now find adrift of the champions by a huge nine points. Barcelona went into the match with their task really cut down - they need to win this and hope Villareal at least hold the champions. Neither did happen.

Barcelona started with the Deco, Xavi and Iniesta in the midfield. Did they paid the price of not having a tall Defensive Midfielder? I don't know even though they may be weak in defense because of that, these three should have provided more attacking stint. Deco was as usual very rusty. But the real surprise was Iniesta who had an average night and that showed in Barcelona's attacking chart. The game started really boring; it took quarter an hour for Barcelona to create a meaning full attack. Messi was the first to test the Bilbao Goalie in the 17th minute. Messi received a throw in and turned inside of his marker and shot only for the Goal keeper to save. In the 33rd minute Athletic Bilbao counter attacked from the left and the cross found Aduriz in the box, who suddenly found himself one on one with the Goal Keeper, but he shot too high. In the 35th minute Iniesta attempted a long through ball to Messi, Messi was beaten on the ball by athletic Goal Keeper but the scrambled away ball found Bojan who slotted the ball past the keeper into the far corner. Bojan did not have a very good night, but he is keeping up with his amazing strike rate in the Main division also.

Barcelona started the second half in the right fashion with their famed attacking line twice raiding the Bilbao goal led by Messi. The first attack saw Messi feeding Bojan, who actually struggled to control it but laid it to Henry who tried to find the far right corner, only to miss by a couple of inches. The second attack saw Messi dribbling up to the line in the box drawing a bunch of defenders along with him, he pulled the ball back to Deco who shot high. In the 56th minute Valdes was called upon to make a decent save off Javi Martinez after Xavi gave away the ball cheaply. Then in the 71st minute Iniesta found sylvinho down the left and his cross found Puyol but he defenders did well to deflect it wide. Then in the 79th minute Barcelona were made to rue all the missed chance as Thuram tried to get in front of Llorente only to deflect the ball into his own Goal. Thuram did not make much mistake in the night (apart from the own goal) but i though he was too slow. The best player on the pitch for Barcelona was Messi, who couldn't do too much - that explains Barcelona’s poor performance.

Henry had a very bad night and there is high chance he will be overlooked when Ronnie come next week. My suggestion is that Rijkaard can try Ezquerra down the left now maybe. Now the big question on every bodies mind will be - Can Barcelona overhaul the nine points lead? There is precisely two reasons why i would say its difficult.

1) Barcelona does not look like capable of winning all their away games.

2) Madrid looks like they are not in the mood to drop a single point now.

Barcelona needs lot of help from other clubs to come near Madrid. But there is not much club in La Liga which looks like will be able to cut down the resilient Madrid side. Anyhow we will hope that they will slip sometime and Barcelona more importantly will take advantage of that. I pray and Hope that the title will be decided when Barcelona will take on Madrid in Barnebeu. For that to happen Barcelona needs to put up so much work, and lady luck has to smile on them relentlessly.

Bojan Goal

Thuram Own Goal

Iniesta Gets the Contract

Andres Iniesta extended his contract with barcelona till 2014. the contract was due to expire in 2010. He still had two years in his existing contract but the Club might be forced to offer him a much better deal after all the transfer rumours. Last transfer window there was too much speculation surrounding him with Madrid's wish to sign him. But there was no concern shown about the speculation by barcelona. Maybe they know the kid too well. Anyway its not known how much he is going to take home weekly, but his Buy-out clause is being increased to 150 million euros. So that's a statement made by barcelona about how much they rate him. There were complains that he was one of the worst paid stars among the barcelona players (Iniesta never made any complaints), hope now he get paid as good as others also.

Iniesta is a fabulous product which barcelona youth academy should be proud of. And the extended contract should be a Medal of Honour for the hardwork put by the Academy to churn out talents like Messi, Xavi, iniesta etc. He himself d confessed that his first year in the academy was very hard. But then leaving home in Fuentealbilla at an age of 12 is not that easy. He may be the most hardworking player in this Barcelona side. With his skill, flair and hardwork there is no doubt he will become a Barcelona giant pretty soon. It's sad that he hasn't found a regular place in the National side starting eleven, but he is one of Spain's key player. Let's hope he can take Spain to glory in the Euro.

For Rijkaard this contract extension should be sweet music to ears. Iniesta is the most key player in his scheme of things. In Iniesta Rijkaard has a trump card which can be placed anywhere in the field, ofcourse expect Goal Keeper. Hope this contract extention inspires him to do more and more great things at the club.