Numancia vs Barcelona Preview

Barcelona opens their La Liga campaign of the 2008-09 tomorrow against newly promoted Numancia at Los Pajaritos. Barcelona would be hoping to wipe out the memories of the Wisla Krakow defeat with their first win away from home in this season's competitive fixture.Moreover Guardiola may want his team to send out a message of intent to the League rival as early as possible. Any stumble at the start may put serious pressure on Guardiola. Numancia is not expected to pose a serious challenge to this strong side; but Guardiola should have already understood that Barcelona's away record and defensive record are not the one which is going to see him through this match. Barcelona should easily outscore their opponents.

Guardiola has announced his squad for the match. Messi comes back to the squad which is as follows : Valdes, Pinto, Caceres, Alves, Abidal, Puyol, Pique, Marquez, Xavi, Gudjohnsen, Keita, Toure Yaya, Iniesta, Messi, Hleb, Henry, Eto'o and Bojan. Valdes is expected to guard the net; but who all will form the Defense is still a question. Most probably we would see a combination of Abidal, Puyol, Marquez and Alves combination. Midfield should be formed by Iniesta and Xavi along with Toure/Keita. Guardiola should resist his temptation to prefer Keita over Toure. The forward line up is guaranteed to be made up of Messi, Eto and Henry. Overall this side should finish off Numancia challenge as early as possible. Then in football you can't predict anything, right?

Barcelona Champions League Opponents

Barcelona could not have asked for more. They along with Chelsea got the easiest groups. I would say Barcelona's group looks like the easiest of all. Barcelona is in Group C along with the likes of F C Basel, Sporting Lisbon and F C Shakhtar Donetsk. The draw looks like a cake walk for Barcelona but then we should never forget what Wisla did to us. In contrast to Barcelona, the other Spanish sides were not so lucky. Real Madrid is placed in a group which could become very tricky along with Zenit, Juventus and BATE. If Zenit and Arshavin can recreate some of the magic which made them UEFA cup champions, then that group surely is destined to see some surprise. Villareal who finished 2nd last season ahead of Barcelona also got into a messy group along with Defending champions Manchester United, Celtic and the Danish side Aalborg BK. Celtic has shown it many a time recently that they are very capable of competing against the best in Europe. Athletico Madrid is paired with Liverpool, PSV and Marseille. This is also a potential trouble some group especially considering the way Liverpool qualified. Let’s take a look at Barcelona's opponents in group stage.

F C Basel is the defending Swiss Super League champions; Their Home jersey is almost same as the present Barcelona Home jersey. F C Basel was knocked out of the Uefa Cup tie last season by Sporting Lisbon. They usually play a 4-5-1 formation and are renowned for playing a attacking style of football. That should make it easy for Barcelona. Their major players are Marco Streller, Franco Costanzo (gk), Carlos Alberto Alves Garcia commonly known as Carlitos and Ivan Ergic. Sporting Lisbon along with Benifica and Porto formed the big three of Portugal. But in contrast to Benifica and Porto, they were never that successful in Europe. They finished second to F C Porto in Portuguese League. Like Barcelona Sporting's youth academy has churned out some serious talents like Figo, Ronaldo, nani, Quaresma etc. Their squad includes the likes of Moutinho, Postiga, Vladimir Stojkovic, Fabio Rochemback, Anderson Polga etc. FC Shakhtar Donetsk is the defending Ukranian league champions. Their major players include Brandao, Darijo Srna, Vyacheslav Shevchuk and Luiz Adriano.

At least on paper we have almost got a place booked for knock-out stage. But complacency and lack of attention could be Barcelona's greatest enemy. As Laporta said "On paper it looks like a manageable group, but we have enough experience to know we need to be attentive and not over-confident. We have to respect all our rivals and work hard."

First Defeat; Wisla Krakow -1, Barcelona F C - 0

Wisla Krakow became the first Polish side to defeat Barcelona, all thanks to a goal from Brazilian Cleber. Cleber's 52nd minute goal thus condemned Barcelona to their first defeat of the season and first in the Guardiola regime. This leg was like a dead rubber and the lack of intensity could be attributed to that. I have written a post about the problems Guardiola needs to tackle in this season, and I am proven right by this result. This match should not be considered alone; instead it should be analysed along with a last gasp victory against Boca. These two matches were the tougheset we have encountered this season. One was against a good opponent at home without Messi, other one was an away match again without Messi. Barcelona fans will start pointing out the unavailability of Messi as the decisive factor and most probably will curse Blatter and FIFA for this. But I have a question - If Messi gets injured in mid-season, what will happen? This result proves that we need a reinforcement who can give a different option Up front. May be Arshavin is still that option. Whatever let's comeback to the game. Guardiola is stubborn in proving my expected squad wrong. He used Iniesta in the far right upfront along with Eto and Henry. Toure, Keita and Xavi formed the midfield. On what basis did Guardiola assumed that Keita will do a job like Deco and Iniesta in that position? This also prove one more thing - that only one of Toure or Keita is needed in the starting eleven, especially when playing a 4-3-3 formation. The defense was made up of Pique, Abidal, Puyol and Alves. As usual Valdez did all kind of non-sence under the bar.

There were some early attack from Barcelona in the first half. All were organised by the most unlikeliest of source - Thierry Henry. Ya, you heard it right. He had one of the better games and could be highlighted as the best player in Barcelona attack. The first attack Eto wasted with a weak header, the second was intercepted by the defense ahead of Iniesta. Then in the 20th minute Valdez showed his true colour, he held on to a back pass from Pique for long and when pressurised cleared it straight to the path of Lobodzinski whose shot went agaonisingly wide of the post. Then in the 36th minute Barcelona's inherent problem with aerial ball came into forefront. Marek Zienczuk's cross from the left was headed by an unmarked Pawel Brozek, but Valdez did well to hold on to a difficult shot. Just three minutes to the half time Barcelona's best moment of the match came from an Iniesta run who placed the ball for Henry, but Henry placed it wide.

After the half Barcelona conceded their first goal of this year's champions league competition. Cleber was left unmarked in the 52nd minute corner and valdez could not stop his header. Valdez should have done better than that. Barcelona reacted immediately with Eto forcing a save from the keeper after wonderful work by Iniesta. In the 62nd minute Pique's header was directed on to the crossbar from a Xavi corner. In the 69th minute Barcelona was almost caught off gaurd by a rampant Lobodzinski from the right but his shot went wide. Then in the 81st minute Tore wasted another chance and just before the end Bojan who came as a substitute wasted the most important chance after some initial good work.

Alarms bell should already run across Barcelona line-up because of this defeat. But many questions have to be raised about the line-up selected. If Guardiola was interested in having both Keita and Toure in the line-up, wouldn't it be sensible to use a 4-4-2 formation. Then he is the boss.