I was disappointed that Dembele didn't feature, in the 2nd half especially when there was more space on the counter for him to use his pace.
Wednesday's match against Roma was the 150th European Cup/Champions League game played at Camp Nou. Barca were the home team in 146 of those games. #147 1975 Quarterfinal, Second Leg Atvidabergs 0-3 Barcelona Although this match was played at Camp Nou, Atvidabergs were the designated 'home' team. Heavy winter conditions prevented the match being played in Sweden. #148 1989 Final Milan 4-0 Steaua The 'neutral' Culés rooted heavily for Milan for two reasons: (1) Milan had knocked out LPB in the semifinals, thus preventing them from possibly lifting big ears inside Camp Nou; (2) Two years earlier Steaua beat Barca in the '86 final. #149 1992-93 1st Round playoff Leeds United 2-1 Stuttgart Stuttgart won first leg 3-0. Leeds won second leg 4-1 but Stuttgart had subbed in a fourth foreign player during the match (Only three were allowed). It wasn't noticed until the following day when Leeds filed a protest. UEFA awarded Leeds the second leg by 3-0 forfeiture which meant a rare third match playoff had to be played. Camp Nou was the selected venue. #150 1999 Final Manchester United 2-1 Bayern Munich "Football! Bloody hell!"
Wasn't too happy about the performace, luckily Roma did it somewhat easy for us. On the plus side Semedo is back and played well, and Denis seems to be on form.
The results on paper look good but I'm not convinced with the performance against Chelsea or Roma. Gotten too many LPB like gifts /breaks in both games IMO. Barça and EV need to rethink some approaches. The lack of playing time for Dembélé in CL is worrying for both parties. He's a great counter attacking player and instead Gomes and Denis came on. Anyways, less mistakes and more solid play in semi is needed to advance to final.
Yep Barca are looking pretty vulnerable, but none of the teams left look unbeatable at the moment. Even Madrid who is being touted as the big favorite right now gave Juve plenty of scoring chances yesterday while playing pretty defensively.
We haven't played at our peak levels or even played well since Valverde took over ... in fact things have been getting steadily worse ... I saw somewhere that we'd gone behind in 9 of the last 12 or 13 games ....usually to be bailed out by Messi .....who's now under par and isn't allowed to sprint due to his ongoing hamstring problems ... No way are we beating any of the other three .. Likely to be Liverpool , Bayern and Madrid ..
Please! Man City suffered a severe case of stage freight. Do you think that will happen with Barca, given all their experience? Bayern weren’t great against Sevilla.
Messi clearly isn’t 100%. The good thing is that if we win 3-4 more matches in the league, then he can take the rest of the league matches off. Will only need to worry about the CL and the Copa final. The niggle he has can only heal with extended rest.