CHAPTER 292: Real Valladolid 0 - 1 Barcelona

Alternative Title: Hard Fought Vital Victory

Phew! That was a nervy game!
Especially that Barcelona scored just one goal and the entire 2nd half was more of a case on holding on to that single goal lead at an away ground. Guardiola wasn’t kidding when he stated that this game would be tough.
Nevertheless they prevailed in the end, and brought to a bad streak of the team not performing well after International games to an end.

Positives

• Win achieved, 3 more points added to the league table for Barça.

• Maintain 6 points on top.

• 4th straight Liga win.

• Also, on a more good note, another clean sheet. It’s the 4th in a row in the league now. Furthermore, not conceding away from home (another positive point).

• What perhaps is most important was that this was perhaps a crucial win for the team. Valladolid was tough, they played hard. In addition, this was a victory by Barcelona after International games (something that Barça has not been lucky at) and of course getting the away victory.

• Besides that, this win is a crucially positive setup for the team going into the equally important quarterfinals clash against Bayern Munich (confidence wise).

• Samuel Eto’o scored the solitary and winning goal (an excellent one-two with Xavi and a good lob over Asenjo). With this goal, Eto’o scored his 26th of the season, and the further good thing is that he has equaled his best tally in his career (Eto’o scored 26 goals in the 2005-2006 season). The Cameroonian can be on course to possibly well achieve 30 or even more goals this season in La Liga.

• Iniesta is back and performed well despite coming back from injury.

• As like Iniesta, Puyol is also back from injury, and did alright.

• Victor Valdes made some saves, especially in the second half. He’s keeping up the clean sheets.

• The team held on to the solitary goal.

• A start for Pedro, and a good enthusiastic performance from him in my opinion.

Negatives

• They were some bad and mispasses from the players, especially in the first half.

• Some of the missed chances: Xavi just shooting high in the first half after Eto’o made good hustle for the ball and passed it back; the other notable miss was during the second half when Iniesta’s shot went just besides the post (the moment he clashed with Asenjo). This particular chance could have sealed the victory for Barcelona at that time.

• Not a great game (from many of the players), but the important thing was that they kept on the score for the win.