Great game overall, very exciting attacking, open match. I think the difference was Cesc and Iniesta stepping up in the second half. nice to see Alves getting 2 assists today, he's slowly returning to his best. edit: oh wow I didn't know next week starts the semi-finals against LPB
Well they will be at home in the first game , they are good on the counter attack and just beat Valencia 5:0 AWAY from home . Anything could happen especially the way we leak goals !
^^ but when the last time we failed to scored against them in last many years? copa de rey final 2 years ago... that's the only one I can remember... they might play counter attack but they're not exactly a team that sit back with 10 man inside the box, they always try to attack not only from counter , that's why we always find the net against them... it just that their counter attack is probably the best in the world right now. They got very fast strikers and mifielders. This season they've scored 6 and we've scored 6 so both team looks equally strong, except they're less less consistence against other side. In recent years Barcelona have scored 3, 5 and even 6 goals against them and their biggest victory against Barcelona in last many years is only by 1 goal. We also thrashed Atletico Madrid recently when many think it will be evenly matched this time. Dont forget we almost beat them in Super cup with 10 men.
Ugh! Not exactly a feather in the cap. "Almost beat them..." Not really. Remember the red card saved a sure LPB goal. Could have been 3-0 after some 20 minutes. Anywho, lets just hope that was their highlight of the season.
Beautiful stuff, and yes, this is part of the reason why Villa is not playing so much and is also why Tito is having even greater initial success than Pep - this is the new plan B. Not some big bulky target forward (though Pique looked good in that role on the second goal), but an extra player or two who could complete rondos in a phone booth against 6 defenders. Specifically, by starting Cesc in nearly all important games, not at the expense of Xavi or Iniesta but rather at the expense of a forward by moving Iniesta up, AND by also adding Alba and thus overcoming Iniesta's limitations as LW when truly forced to maintain width, we now have 7 rondo in a phone booth players forward where before we had 5 or 6 (basically I'm talking about adding Cesc and Alba to Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Busquets, and Alves); no disrespect to other players - our entire team is technically gifted but these players perhaps a hair more so. While we joked about Pep doing the same last year (the whole thing about starting 8-10 midfielders), Pep tried to do so by removing a defender. Tito still has one or both fullback pressing forward but he has made it a 4-4-2 or even 4-5-1 or truly a 2-7-1 where the 2 CBs and 1 forward are highly skilled but just not quite at the crazy level witnessed in that gif. So perhaps the new Plan B is simply "we'll see your parked bus and pass around it" (though credit to Malaga, they played great D w/o simply parking the bus).
I like this image very much. And I agree on the analysis of Tito's tactics. But look at that gif again. There are zero Malaga defenders in the box at the start of that play. Most buses get parked firmly inside the area, and you'll be lucky to see a forward up above the 'D' sometimes. Malaga played a great, aggressive game, but we connected passes in behind them which created all 4 goals. Compare to Chelsea in the CL semi last spring. We hardly ever got behind them. At least Adriano has turned into a bunker-buster of sorts this season.
The good thing is when we play them at their place, they will have key players hopefully still missing If we score AND not concide then its ours for the taking
I hope we start at a fast tempo against the, in the last 3/4 games with them they alway start a lot quicker than us and we are on the back foot for the first 30 mins. In the game this season we could have been 4 down after the first 20 mins. Admittedly we tend to finish much stronger, but for once it would be good if we took the initiative from kick off.
Iniesta's movement on his goal was amazing. Obviously Fabregas as well. Both of them were perfectly in sync. Messi has 40 goals already and it's only January.
It would be ridiculous if he broke the previous single-season scoring record in consecutive seasons. What a scoring explosion he's had since 08/09. 38, 47, 53, 73, 40+. He's on pace for 77 goals if he plays in at least 60 games (last season). I wonder how many consecutive seasons of 40+ goals he'll end up having at Barca.
When was the last time Messi hit a hat-trick? What's with these 1 and 2 gol games? Barcelona B is not that far away or loan him out.
Maybe we can bring in that great striker who was won the world player of the year before Messi did , Ron... Ron... Ronald....oh yeah thats it, Ronaldinho
His last hattrick was in pre season game against Casablanca if I remember correctly It's amazing that this is his highest record "yet" at the same period of the season, it shows his consistency to score in almost every single game. http://www.marca.com/2013/01/25/en/football/barcelona/1359138262.html By scoring against Málaga, Messi took his goalscoring streak when in the starting line-up to 15 straight games.
Love watching poor #16 between Messi and Alves lose all hope after the fifth tiki-taka... Plus, very cool video playlist of sweet little moments of skill and brilliance from this game: http://radd.it/17933a
It would appear, yes. From their online guide (times are ET)... 2:30 PM The Express "Copa Del Rey Previa: Real Madrid vs. Barcelona" 3:00 PM Fútbol Español Primera División 5:00 PM The Express "Copa Del Rey Post - Real Madrid vs. Barcelona" (español channel only) Tough to imagine them sandwiching a recorded La Liga fixture with Clasico Copa preview and post-match shows. That listing will change showing the Copa tie.