CHAPTER 293: Barcelona 4 - 0 Bayern Munich

Alternative Title: ADVANTAGE BARÇA!!!!


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No words to describe man, just simply a phenomenal performance! Visca el Barça!
Just a great advantage obtained in the first leg.


Positives

• A BIG, BIG WIN!! Fantastic, huge scoreline!

• Another huge positive factor, no away goals conceded!! That’s very big and important.

• Team’s overall performance: fantastic confidence, pressure, pressing, positioning, winning the ball back numerous times, team spirit and team play.

• Phenomenal first half performance. Perhaps Barça’s best 1st half this season (or even amongst other seasons).

• Goals yet again from Barcelona’s terrific trident. All of Messi, Eto’o and Henry added up their goal tally for the season.

• First, second and forth goal were all great finishing.

• All goals scored were made from great team play and crisp passing.

• Messi now has 8 goals in the Champions League, now he’s the competitions’ tops scorer! And not only that, he’s now scored 32 goals in all competitions! The Argentinean is having an impressive season.

• A good personal achievement for Thierry Henry. His goal is his 50th Champions League goal!

• On another positive note regarding Henry’s performance against the Germans, I believe that this was his best performance for Barcelona while playing on the left wing. He just was too good for Oddo to handle. Very spirited, high in confidence and very industrious from the Frenchman, simply excellent.

• The way Eto’o broke the offside trap for his goal was similar to the one he scored against Arsenal in Paris (and excellent pass from Messi!).

• Messi’s had a good run and then made a long shot at 57th minute, but was stopped by Butt (ball hit Butt’s arm).

• Puyol made that great tackle on Ze Roberto on the 70th minute that was a great chance for Bayern to score (Bayern’s break that ended up into their corner kick).

• Just a great all around game from Barcelona. Just complete utter domination throughout.

• Marquez’s yellow card.

Negatives

• Messi’s yellow card. Albeit the ref might be incorrect, but still a negative point for the game nonetheless.

• Barcelona not getting the penalty.

• Guardiola’s rage.

• Henry should have buried the shot he made when afterwards he clashed studs up against Butt (a great run and pass from Iniesta). There was another shot he made early on in the 5th minute but it was at a difficult angle and that Bayern defender came back to block it. But this shot really should have been converted.

• Eto’o shot blasted just too high on the 62nd minute.

• Alves lost the ball on the 74th minute, giving Bayern a free throw in.

• Iniesta’s dribbling at 77th minute into Bayern’s goal and he made that swerving short lob that went over the bar.

• Keita was in the way of Messi’s shot towards the end of the game (that came from Iniesta and Bojan’s running and dribbling towards Bayern’s goal).

• Marquez’s yellow card.

Other point…..
Rafael Marquez’s yellow card:

The Mexican’s yellow card is the first time that I have allocated as both a positive and a negative point ever since I made this post Barcelona game analysis.
The good thing about his yellow card is that he would miss the return leg in Germany but that would ensure he’ll be straight available in the probable semifinals’ first leg (should Barcelona progress). And he did get that card in the best manner (haha) late on in the game, after playing a great game without drawing yellow or red from the ref.
Even though many would see the card as a ‘great’ advantage for the team for the bout of the semifinals, I have to state that it’s still negative in the terms that the team is not able to count on Marquez’s game in the return leg, and another point is who’s to say that Marquez might not make a disastrous action during the semifinals (e.g. getting a red card in the 1st leg).
Nevertheless, the positive of it perhaps outweighs the negative of his suspension.