Finally The Victory Arrives; FC Barcelona-3, Sporting-1

FC Barcelona started their Champions League campaign with a 3-1 victory against Sporting Lisbon. Goals from Marquez, Eto and Xavi made sure that Barcelona shrugg off their bad start in the League with a good disciplined performance. Pep Guardiola has already shown signs that he is not going to wait for things to happen; instead he is going to make it happen. FC Barcelona changed their formation from the usual 4-3-3 to a 3-4-3 formation. It was more like a 3-1-3-3 formation where Alves played as a Right winger ahead of three man defense but behind three man midfield. This made sure that Barcelona wasn't caught that often on counter. The defense was made up of Puyol on the left, Marquez on the centre and Pique on the right. In the midfield Keita joined the creative force of Xavi and Iniesta. The forward line up was back to the familiar Henry, Eto and Messi combination.

FC Barcelona started the game quite confidently resting the majority of possesion early on. In the 2nd minute Iniesta saw his shot going just wide from outside the box. In the next minute Eto wasted a splendid cross from Henry in the left; he failed to control the ball; had he done that Barca would have been one up early on. In the 11th minute Alves who had a great game found Xavi in the box; but Xavi shot wide from a promising position. In the early minutes it was clear that the three forward weren't looking sharp. Especially Messi, who looked more like disinterested. In the 20th minute FC Barcelona goes one up when Marquez scored from the corner. It was good to see Barca approaching the corner a different way. xavi who took the corner sent the ball to the wide of far post. Marquez then headed the ball into the net. Marquez was clearly trying to reach Keita who was in the centre; but poor defending caused the ball to reach the back of net. After the goal as in Racing game Barcelona dropped the tempo a bit; but their back three and midfield were solid. In the 38th minute Messi fails to control a great pass from Iniesta. It was the third time it was happening with Messi just in the first half. In the 40th minute Henry Shot high from a beautiful pass from Iniesta. Then in the 45th minute Messi cut past two defender with a wonderful run; but he was too greedy tried to take too many defenders rather than passing to other players wasted a golden chance which he himself created. He was justifying Maradona's accusation that he is being too greedy.

After the break FC Barcelona was lucky not to concede a goal when Marquez was compeltely beaten by an aerial ball. Puyol was in the right place to intercept and get the ball to safety. In the 52nd minute Barcelona almost conceded a goal from a familiar position - the corner. One th counter Eto saw his shot deflected wide. Then in the 59th minute FC Barcelona was awarded the most stupid penalty I have seen in my life time. Eto jumped to head a cross from Alves; he was no where near the ball and fell down with the smallest of nudgest. Eto duly converted from the penalty to give FC Barcelona a two goal advantage. In the 66th minute Toure was brought in place of Eto, surprisingly Messi was not replaced. In 72nd minute Sporting scores from a free kick from the right of the box. Absolutely poor defending; usually we never use to pick the guy who scores, but this time there were two players around him, they both missed the cross. Guardiola by this time has allowed the game to drift a lot from Barcelona's control. But he immediately brought in pedro in place of Henry. That changed the tempo and Barcelona was in complete control in last fifteen minutes. Messi who looked like sleeping on the pitch came back to life in the last ten minutes. In the 81st minute, Messi made a wonderful run in to the box taking on two defenders; but his final shot was very well saved by the Goal Keeper. In the 85th minute Messi goes for another great run from the centre of the pitch and passes to Iniesta but he shot wide. Iniesta made ammence for that missed oppurtunity with an inch perfect pass to Xavi in the minute, which Xavi converted to take the lead back to two goals.

No way you can say that this was a clinical performance. I believe they played well against Racing than this one. But still it was a marked improvement and more over the players showed that they can scrap a win comfortably. The most positive of the game was that they did that with none of the three forwards in complete control of their game. Messi in particular was the worst player on the pitch. He looked lazy, appeared not interested and too greedy at many times. Alves, Marquez, Puyol and Pique had a solid game. Iniesta was the creative force. Guardiola immediately needs to talk to Messi and get things straight. If he is not commited then Pedro is a very good option down that right side. Marquez always baffles me, he is like a King on the ground but the moment the balls goes in air he becomes a pauper. And it was surprising to see that the fan's man of the match was Lionel Messi. Come on, Barca fans, wake up.

Start of The Champions League Journey

FC Barcelona starts this years Champions League journey with much hope against Sporting Lisbon at Camp Nou today. FC Barcelona's current form should make this tie more and more interesteing. Barca has not been able to win in the last three matches, whereas Sporting has won three of their matches. But still if FC Barcelona can up the tempo like in the second half versus Racing, they should be able to go past the Sporting challenge. The squad announced for the Sporting tie is Valdés, Pinto, Henry, Márquez, Xavi, Piqué, Iniesta, Puyol, Cáceres, Sylvinho, Bojan, Eto'o, Messi, Alves, Keita, Gudjohnsen, Touré and Pedro. Abidal has been dropped and being replaced by Sylvinho. Dissappointing for Busquests who has been dropped in place for Marquez. Sporting is expected to play the counter attacking style of football with players like Moutinho, Rochemback, Postiga. So Barca players can expect to find more space in comparision with Racing match.

Barcelona is expected to start with the back four of Sylvinho, Marquez, Puyol and Alves. Sylvinho will be a good option going forward but he could be caught out on the defense. But then compared to Abidal he is a much safer option. How the three man midfield will be structured is yet to be seen. Iniesta and Xavi is expected to start, but whom among Keita and Toure will start is left to speculation. Based on last match Keita may find himself ahead of Toure. The front two is fixed with Eto and Messi; everyone expects Henry to start. But I would like to see Pedro starting from the left and Henry coming in as a substitute. It should make Henryt perform in the match. FC Barcelona showed great improvement and attitude in last match against Racing Santander. They should be able to see the Sporting challenge. But the defense problems still remain; but I believe more they play they may gel together and play more effectively. But for the time being as I mentioned in my last post; the best defensive strategy is keep the ball in opposition half.

Setting the Tempo

There are early signs of desperation from FC Barcelona fans across the globe. Their desperation can be justified as the first two results of the season is not what they have hoped for. Especially the pre-season tour with Guardiola gave huge hopes of a complete revival. I have earlier written in those pre-season match reports that FC Barcelona may be flattering them by going by those matches. In all those matches they have showed huge defensive weakness; I do agree they scored more than twenty goals, but all of them were against weak defenses. Then came the Numancia match which went completely wrong for FC Barcelona. FC Barcelona was supposed to destroy Racing and show his intention; but that also does not happen. I have been criticized by many Barca fans for being too negative on Barca; but this time I feel rather positive about the draw against Racing Santander.

Racing was expected to play a defensive style and to Barcelona's credit they did break it on a number of occasions. Yup, you can argue that there was no end product to show for that. Guardiola did the right thing to give a wake up call for Henry and surprisingly Iniesta. Iniesta has been Barca's consistent performer since last season; but completely disappeared in the Numancia match. That looked like done the trick as Iniesta came as a substitute and was roaring down the left flank. Pedro and Busquests were simply revelation. If we analyse the match the best part of the match for Barca came after the break till the goal. FC Barcelona relentlessly attacked Racing and there were some frantic scenes at the Racing Goal mouth. All credits to Racing for not succumbing to that kind of pressure. But on a second analysis we can find that it was the tempo at which Barcelona played in that time made all those pressure. The pace was back and since they are the masters of one touch football they terrorised the defense. I have written in my earlier post titled Watch Out, Pep that if Guardiola is expecting to bring back the glorious times, he first need to bring back that pace and tempo. And we saw first signs of that in the Racing match. Sporting tie in Champions League can be seen as a test to whether they can consistently do the same.

If I am right, Barcelona won almost nine corners. But they could not make a decent chance out of the majority of them. Pep cannot allow this to happen for long. He should make sure that the opposition defense should concede a corner against Barcelona as the last option; not as the first option like it is happening now. Secondly he needs to encourage his players to get into the box more often. Many times very good crosses from Alves found no one as there was only Eto in there. At this moment I don't think we can do anything in the defense. The only option to make sure the defense is solid now is to keep the ball in the opposite half.