Real Valladolid vs Barca Preview

After two weeks break La Liga will be back in action from tonight. FC barcelona is making the trip to Valladolid tonight to take their quest for La Liga title forward. Barca finds themselves in quite trickly situation. The south American players joined the squad late compare to the Europe based players. We have failed to win consistently this season after an international break, that puts Barca in a tricky situation. Real Madrid will be on our heels looking for any weakness. Guardiola would be hard done by the fact that he had most of his squad on international duties and he also got a crusial Champions League tie coming up. Instead of blaming FIFA for the tight schedule the big clubs in Europe should persuade UEFA to re-arrange their Champions League fixtures so that it does not fall in a week after Internationa duties. Valladolid lies ninth in the table and would be a difficult place for Barca to travel especially after an international break. They have been pretty inconsistent with their form at home. They have beaten the likes of Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, Real Madrid at home; but then they have gone down to teams like Racing, Betis, Malaga etc at home. The last time FC Barcelona met them at Camp Nou, Barca scored six past them withoout any reply.

Guardiola has nnounced his travelling squad ahead of the clash. Alexanded Hleb has been left out as a precaution after he suffered a knock while on international duties. Yaya Toure and Abidal both are still out with injury. But Iniesta and Puyol has recovered from their injuries and has made it into the squad. The squad is Valdés, Pinto, Alves, Márquez, Piqué, Cáceres, Puyol, Sylvinho, Sergio Busquets, Keita, Xavi, Iniesta, Gudjohnsen, Henry, Eto'o, Messi, Bojan, Pedro. It is still not clear whether Guardiola will start with Messi in the starting line up. I see only a substitute role for him. Valdes has been in the media for his contract negiotiations with Barca, but he is sure to guard Barca's goal. Puyol, Pique, Marquez and Sylvinho could form the defense. Guardiola would do Alves a favour by resting him as he is back from his trip to South America. Xavi, Busquets and Iniesta would form the midfield. Henry and Eto should form the front trio along with Pedro. Again it would be better to rest Messi and bring him in the second half only if the situation demands it. Iniesta need s to have quality playing time as we cannot afford for him to be rusty in Bayern match. Xavi has been over working but I don't think we can afford to start with him on the bench. True to our form after International break we could struggle here; but as Busquets pointed out that should not be an excuse. This could be a tight game but Barca could see home due to their exceptional players.
My prediction : Vallodolid - 1, Barca - 3.

Argentina Humiliated, Spain Marches On; International Results

The second leg of world cup qualification has just gotten over. There were some extremely surprising result. Again I will start with my favourite, Argentina. Argentina equalled their worst ever defeat at the high altitude of Bolivia by a score line of 6-1. Yup, you read that right! It is six goals against one. This is Maradona's first defeat as the national team coach. Maradona's after match comments reveals the extend of dissappointment - "“There are no excuses. They thoroughly beat us and there is nothing else to say except to give credit to Bolivia. Whenever they attacked, they scored. And each goal that they scored was like a dagger through my heart." Bolivia lies 9th in the table and did a world of good to their qualification quest by this victory. This lose coulkd be good for Barca as Messi would be eager to forget that with some sensational performance. With Brazil winning against Peru by 3-0, Argentina now moved to fourth in the table. Dani Alves started in the Brazilian line-up and did provide the assist for Fabiano's and Brazil's second goal. Luis Fabiano struck twice in the first half and another goal from Felipe Melo completed a comfortable victory for Brazil. Martin Caceres' side Uruguay held on to a valuable goalless draw against Chile away from home. Chile lies third in the table while Uruguay lies fifth.

Mexico minus Marquez (who is suspended) lost to Honduras 3-1 away from home. This defeat has raised more questions about their chance of qualification and also on Errickson's future. While in Europe, Spain continued their relentless march with a late victorty againt Turkey. Semih SENTURK put Turkey ahead in the first half but Xabi Alonso equalised just after the hour mark from a spot kick; Riera then grabbed the winner late in the injury time. FC Barcelona players Xavi and Pique started in the line-up, while Busquets made a second half entry. In another match Hleb's Belarus overwhelmed Kazakhstan by 5-1. Kazak's opened the scoring through Renat but Hleb equalised in the 47th minute. After that two goals from Kalachev and one each from Stasevich and Rodionov sealed the match for Belarus. Meanwhile a solitory goal from inform Ribery gave France a valuable victory against Lithuania.

FC Barcelona may go after Peter Cech

In my last post Victor Valdes fights for a Better Contract I have mentioned that in all this contract fight Victor Valdes could be the biggest loser. With a chance of Valdes moving out, there are reports emerging about FC Barcelona looking seriously for a replacement. And the first named to be linked is not some small one - it is Peter Cech, the current Chelsea custodian. FC Barcelona was interested in signing the Czech some years back; but if the MundoDeportivo is to be believed, they have not yet given up on the pursuit of him. Peter Cech is widely regarded as one of the best in Europe. Currently he is 26 years old and has so much playing time left in his career. But it is still difficult to imagine Chelsea letting him go. In 2007 when quizzed about a move to Barcelona, Cech did sound a bit positive and that fact should give hope for FC Barcelona establishment. But the chances of signing him at this moment remains very slight and cannot see the bosses going all out after him. FC Barcelona management would like to keep their pursuit as secretive as possible, true to their management style.

Peter Cech could be one of rare goalies who has some kind of record in wherever he played. He holds the Czech professional league record of not conceding a goal in 855 competitive minutes. He also has a club record at his former team Sparta Praha, having gone 928 minutes unbeaten in all competitions in 2001—2002. During the 2004-05 season, Cech went 1,025 minutes without conceding a goal - a former Premier League record until Edwin van der Sar of Manchester United bettered it. Wikipedia says that "Cech started out as a midfielder/striker for the youth team of his hometown club Viktoria Plzen, occasionally taking the centre forward position in games.He started playing in goal when there main goalkeeper couldn't come anymore." Now that's going to make Barca fans more happy. But as I mentioned earlier - he would be a great signing, but difficult one to complete. In other news The doctor who performed operation on Milito's Knee sounded confident of about Milito's return to competitive football this season. It's almost a year since he played last. He has slowly returned to normal training but when he will get to play is still a mystery.