Sunday, September 28, 2008

CHAPTER 205: Espanyol (1) - Barcelona (2) [analysis]

Alternative title: Last Seconds Victorious

I was only able to see the 2nd half of the game, as I had missed out on the entire first half.
So my points below are based upon the performance of the Barcelona players during the 2nd half.

Positives
  • A win.
  • A comeback victory (the first this season).
  • The winning streak continues. It’s now three wins in a row in La Liga for Barcelona.
  • They never stopped looking for the equalising and winning goal.
  • Barcelona kept attacking pressure against Espanyol as the minutes went by.
  • A positive point for Thierry Henry in getting his first goal for this season. And he showed good never gave up spirit from getting the ball up to getting it back when Jarque unfortunately deflected it in Henry’s path for the Frenchman to crucially hit it on goal. Hopefully, Henry will now score more in the coming games when he’s on the field.
  • Messi’s involvement in attack was good, and evident when he passed to Eto’o in the dying minutes of the game. He’s been displaying this crucial and vital connection in setting up his teammates for goal scoring opportunities.
  • Messi’s penalty. Ice cool man, ice cool.
Negatives
  • For me, I believe that Barcelona should have done better in getting the best chances in creating opportunities as well as scoring against Espanyol, as they started the second half with a man less. Sure, Espanyol bunkered up pretty tightly but then Barcelona should’ve really come up with a great solution or deciphering in countering these ‘parked bus’ situations, which should be an expected scenario from Barcelona’s oppositions (especially with the opposition playing with ten men).
  • Even though they were playing with ten men, the times that they came out and attacked Espanyol looked and played with more urgency in scoring than Barcelona who kept sticking to the patient, control the tempo & pass style in creating opportunities to score the needed goals. The negative factor here is that it seems again that Barcelona is highly susceptible in conceding goals but find it so damn bloody hard to score.
  • I believe that the freekick that Heny took towards the end of the game (before Messi scored), he should have done better. I think that he stalled too much time once Xavi ran and passed by the ball, and when Henry shot the ball the sense of unexpectedness and unpredictability for the Espanyol defense to take care of from a set-piece was gone.
Other things to say… In Barça’s last game there was an off the field moment when Eto’o pushed and celebrated with Guardiola. I think that in this game, the off the field moment was the expression on the VIP box shown by the camera when Medina Cantelejo awarded the last minute penalty. The slight sly grin from Laporta was priceless as equally was the reactions from Daniel Sanchez Llibre and his Espanyol cohorts, what with the way they all jumped up from their seats. Well, how dramatic can you get in this game? Everybody’s been raving about it that it had everything dramatic: a comeback victory, a player sent off, crowd trouble, game was suspended for a period of time, and a last minute penalty given and with that penalty scored in the dying seconds of the game. Bloody hell. But for a Barça fan and definitely from Barcelona’s perspectives, bloody great! The time that the game was halted due to crowd problem was and will never be great for a football game and for football in general. Such is the problem in Spanish football that such trouble is still prevalent, and apart from the refereeing, the Spanish League still have to work a lot upon making the league great.

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