Alternative title: Messi vs Aguerro, The Duel Part 1: Messi Wins The First
( 2nd Alternative title: The Best Win Thus Far )
( 2nd Alternative title: The Best Win Thus Far )
- 3 points gained with the win. Slowly Barça moves up the league table.
- 4th straight win in La Liga, the sixth straight win in all competitions. The winning streak continues.
- It was a fantastic victory with a fantastic scoreline for Barcelona.
- Easily the best game thus far from Guardiola and the team. Everything, every facet of the game (the tactics, the speed of the pressure and gameplay, the control of the tempo and the passing, and the teamwork spirit showed, etc.) seemed perfect.
- 3 goals scored within the first 10 minutes of the game is phenomenal and fantastic.
- Another goal scored from a corner. Big thumbs up from Marquez.
- I believe that the third goal was Messi’s first goal scored from a freekick for Barcelona. And it was a great and beautiful shot (albeit the Atletico players were not fully concentrated, which was them at their own fault though).
Hopefully now Messi would be a reliable threat in freekicks for the team, and thus add another valuable asset to his gameplay. - Two goals from Samuel Eto’o. Two more goals added to his goal tally. And thus proving that his stay in Barcelona this season would prove to be a great ‘signing’ (or should I say, ‘re-signing’). The control he showed before he scored his second was great.
- Henry came on and scored a superb goal. Added with his pass first to Xavi and then the intricate passes that occurred from Xavi to Bojan and then back to Henry before he blasted it low pass through Coupet could have been Barça’s best goal of the night.
- From his performance and display, Xavi is showing that he’s among the best in the team and the best in the world at his position at this current time.
He’s been making great assists for the past several games (including this one, with the one for Eto’o for the Cameroonian’s second).
There was once during the second half that Xavi caught the ball with his heel and gave a great pass through the Atletico Madrid defence to Gudjohnsen only for Gudjohnsen to hit a good shot but it was able to be saved by Coupet. Had that ball gone in it would have been a great goal with great buildup.
I believe that (and sure that others would agree as well) Xavi is the MOM in this match, and importantly the key and indispensable piece of Guardiola’s plans and play. - Additional positives point:
- Great atmosphere and support from the Camp Nou crowd. The chanting of the players names during the game, and more so the Mexican wave from the crowd was good as well. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a Mexican wave at the Camp Nou.
- Well, with this crushing thrashing, hopefully it spurs Atletico Madrid to regroup and refocus, and beat the sh-t out of Real Madrid in their next game with a long desired victory over their city rivals.
- The goal conceded sort of distorted the great winning scoreline of the game from Barcelona. And Busquest was at fault for his carelessness with the poor pass back to Maxi Rodriguez. However, that was great goal scored by the Atletico player, and I believe that this is the first goal conceded that was a great and difficult goal for Valdes to have stopped it from entering the back of his net.
- Thus the negativity of conceding a goal in each game continues for Barcelona.
- Iniesta was unlucky with two shots hitting the post (thankfully though was on the rebound for the fifth goal).
Hopefully he’ll be able to be a potent finisher as soon as possible (although Barcelona has long been waiting for Iniesta to really deliver in his finishing. This season could be his as his making that left wing spot his very own property). - In addition, Messi could have also done with better finishing after that amazing run he had towards the Atletico goal as he speed his way through their defence some time after Guddy scored the fifth goal. Then he had another similar chance again after that.
- Personally, I didn’t like the reaction from Eto’o when he was substituted and as he left the field. The commentator said that perhaps he wanted to stay in the game and get a possible hat-trick and that’s why he looked angry. But I felt that this isn’t a good expression to show to the boss, as in the end it’s always the team that matters more than the individual player. Hopefully it doesn’t subsides to even bigger sh-t stirred (we don’t want another Vilafranca outburst).
- Bojan, though he has been more of an impact player under Guardiola’s gameplan, he’s been trying to hard to score a goal for himself, I feel that he’s not as composed when he gets finishing opportunities.
It’s been a tough period for Bojan nowadays, the danger is him deteriorating not only from the lack of minutes he’s having but also from possible lost of confidence. Guardiola better be careful in developing Bojan in the right way, besides being the prodigy that he is, he still got a long way to go (and it’s even more important considering that with his Catalan link, I believe Bojan could be an even more important figure for Barcelona in the very near future). - It might not concern this game, but the upcoming break in the league due to the forthcoming international football matches next week (in which the teams will only be resuming in two weeks time) could be bad and negatively affect in certain ways. One case is that it could hamper the winning streak that Barcelona has been gathering at this point. The other case is that with the international matches there could exist those damn injuries risks.
No comments:
Post a Comment