Great luck/good thinking on the coin flip before kickoff: Leganes had the sun in their eyes for the first half, but now in the second half the field is in shadow.
If you see how Paco belted it with his instep, I think he saw Cuellar cheating off his line a bit and was going for goal. Credit to Luisito for not giving up on the play and pouncing on the loose ball before the keeper could.
Good point. In a related note, 50% of the fans must love these early kickoffs. The stadiums aren't built for China-primetime kickoffs. Who knew?
Anybody else you have to assume it was just keeping the ball alive, but with Messi you have to think he knew Paulinho was right there.
Another iffy performance, another win. Overall the team is more solid defensively than last year but up front it's a concern. Hope Dembele makes an impact when he comes back from injury.
7 pts over Valencia, 11 over the Madrids (1 or both of whom will drop 3 or 2 today), 14 over Villarreal, all of whom have 1 game in hand. Not to get too far ahead, but IF we can beat Valencia with two left footed CBs (and a Barca B CB on the bench), we will have either an 8 point lead over one of Real or Atletico Madrid in 3rd place (I'm assuming Valencia wins this weekend to stay within 4 before we play them), or a 10 point lead over and both Madrids (if the latter draw). Of course we can lose to Valencia and open the whole race up to Valencia and whichever Madrid (if any) manages the win.