PBP: FC Barcelona v Olympique Loynnais | UEFA Champions League R16 - 2nd Leg | 13 March 2019 [R]

I am so elated. What a game! Messi was great but it wasn't just him tonight. Thought Coutinho, Suarez, and Alba all moved well with and without the ball. Arthur is fantastic at setting the tempo for this team and hardly ever makes errors. Busquets really showed up. Pique was solid and scored a goal too. With the exception of 10 minutes around the Lyon goal we seemed in total control of this game. But damn those 10 minutes were nerve-wracking. Messi's second goal was clutch as hell and his patience to get that shot was legendary. And his PK showed nerves of steel. Lenglet was a bit sloppy. Roberto seemed injured. VV should have subbed him out. All in all a very good performance.

Bring on Juve next! Let's go!!!

 

This is probably Pique’s best season since 2015-16 season. On our way to the quarters and definitely we can win our third Treble this season.

 

Pique has had a great season, more so in the last 20 games or so, and I think developing a rapport with Lenglet had alot to do with it. First third of the season we very rarely kept clean sheets, we were definitely missing Umtiti for most of that time (and when he played he was not 100%). So it's been a great turnaround, and credit has to go to Lenglet too, and even coach. The entire defense has allowed far less goals in the 2nd third of the season. Pique is playing again like one of the best CBs in the world (same can be said of our LB, DM, and RW).

 

100% sure UEFA will make sure Barca and Juve doesn’t draw together.

 

That's why I phrased it as a question. I take a lot of posts with a grain of salt. I'm no stranger to partisan factions on message boards in favor of certain players over others (definitely happens in other sports) and how that can color observations. All I noticed was that a few more people than usual were calling out Coutinho and Roberto in the 2nd half, not Rakitic, who I thought was solid as well.

Also, I probably would check BBC when I can't see a game, but bigsoccer loads up pretty quickly when my phone internet isn't working so well, and I appreciate the random things people take note of in-game.

 

That’s precisely my take on things last night yet I’m considered to be biased against Rakitic ...
He didn’t even get a mention in your fairly detailed assessment as , as usual , the game basically just passed him by ...

 

But therein lies the difference: Danko never mentioned Rakitic. You always do and it’s followed with negative comments 99% of the time: “Yeah, he did that but he didn’t do this, this and this.”
By not mentioning Rakitic does that automatically mean Danko feels he played negatively? Maybe but we can’t assume that. He pointed out Lenglet and S. Roberto, though. Maybe he felt neutral about Rakitic which isn’t really damning. He didn’t mention Ter Stegen either so now what?

 

Ter Stegen had very little to do plus that’s out of his hands to a large extent isn’t it ..

My point is that Raki was once again basically a passenger with the game ( and the ball ) literally passing him by ..

He made absolutely no attempt to help bring the ball out from the back and no attempt to make himself available every time Arthur was being roaming around fending off pressure.

My assessment of him has always been that when he has time and space, his intelligence can shine through and he can make the cute little touches or nice long passes, but when the game is on, he's as good as playing with 10 men. He probably looks great in training when the intensity is lower than in games, which is why coaches rate him so much.

 

Messi’s energy seems to have returned to him. Seemed like he was carrying an injury in the past few games, but that extra spark was back yesterday.

Oddly just his finishing was a bit off.

 

At some thread a couple of weeks ago, I said I'm getting so fed up with the ill-argued endless negativity here (not from everybody), that I'd take a break from posting until the next season.

But what do you know, I enjoy reading/writing here, so **** that plan.

I do understand that some people have locked opinions on certain players and issues. I have locked opinions about stuff myself, of course. All good.

*

As for Barca - Lyon, great result, solid performance.

Happy that Coutinho got a goal. He has obviously been poor lately, but he is a good player. Maybe we sell him in the summer, I don't know, but either way it would be good if he played a good final phase of the season, and sometimes when you're down, little things like goals pave the way to step-by-step finding your groove.

 

Rakitic had an average performance. He was solid but also missed the goal on that one great chance.

 

I agree that he had a meh performance, but can't fault him for that "miss" surely. It was a half-volley and because of the direction and the speed the ball was going in he couldn't wait for the ball to come down enough. Hence, that shot was always going to go high. I don't care if it was Messi or prime Pele that shot is always heading 10 yards over the net.

On another note, how 'bout Arthur's passing stats: 71 for 72 completed.

 

Arthur was immense which begs the question why take him off and leave ‘you know who’ on ??

 

Yeah, it was good to bring on Vidal, but spelling Rakitic instead of Arthur might have been wiser. I'm a Rakitic fan, but Arthur had a better game by far. But Arthur was out injured more recently, maybe needed a breather more than Rakitic did?

Obviously in hindsight we should have brought on Malcom instead of Dembele, given Dembele's injury. But then we brought on Dembele when it was 2-1 (and tense) and we scored 3 goals after he came on. So maybe it was worth it... but hindsight says bring on Malcom instead (and we still score at least one of those 3 goals).

 

One can partially blame the ref for Dembele's injury. If he doesn't allow the goal which involved 2 Lyon fouls in the 3 seconds leading-up to the ball going in the net, then EV probably doesn't risk Dembele.

 

Camp Nou attendance

93,265 Sun 28 Oct Real Madrid 16:15
92,346 Wed 13 Mar Olympique Lyon (UCL)
92,008 Wed 6 Feb Real Madrid (Copa) 21:00
88,712 Sat 20 Oct Sevilla 20:45
86,290 Wed 24 Oct Internazionale (UCL) 21:00
83,174 Sun 11 Nov Betis 16:15
78,686 Sat 22 Dec Celta 18:30
78,015 Sat 29 Sept Athletic Bilbao 16:15
76,789 Sat 2 Feb Valencia 18:15
76,398 Wed 5 Dec Cultural Leonesa (Copa) 21:30
76,055 Sun 23 Sept Girona 20:45
74,158 Sat 9 Mar Rayo Vallecano 18:30
73,462 Tue 18 Sept PSV Eindhoven (UCL) 18:55
73,003 Sun 2 Dec Villarreal 18:30
71,057 Sun 2 Sept Huesca 18:30
71,039 Sun 13 Jan Eibar 18:30
70,089 Wed 15 Aug Boca Juniors (Gamper) 18:15
69,961 Tue 11 Dec Tottenham (UCL) 21:00
67,435 Sat 16 Feb Real Valladolid 20:45
58,050 Wed 30 Jan Sevilla (Copa) 21:30
52,356 Sat 18 Aug Alavés 22:15
50,670 Sun 20 Jan Leganés 20:45
42,838 Thur 17 Jan Levante (Copa) 21:30