Barça 4 Valencia 0
Saturday, 06 December 08, 02:34 PM · Comments (35)
Barça go into next weekend's clasico with a six point advantage at the top of La Liga after another fantastic performance to beat Valencia 4-0. With the absence of Samuel Eto'o, Thierry Henry rose to the occasion to score his second hat-trick in Barça colours with Dani Alves adding the other. Barça were so superior today that Victor Valdés hardly had a save to make and Valencia's dangerman David Villa hardly had a sniff of goal. We also had the biggest attendance of the season so far with just under 83,000 fans to witness the display
There were not many surprises in Pep's team selection this week: Eric Abidal returned at left back meaning that Gerard Piqué started on the bench as Carles Puyol returned to centre half, Eidur Gudjohnsen was chosen over Seydou Keita to start on the left of midfield while the front three were Messi, Hleb and Henry with Henry generally playing on the left with Messi and Hleb changing positions.
Valencia were forced to field a new look defence and after just 90 seconds a misunderstanding allowed Xavi to intercept a pass and run on before shooting against the base of the post. Barça had the better of the first 20 minutes and deservedly took the lead when Toure's neat chipped pass sent Henry through to flick the ball over the advancing Renan. David Villa had a great chance to equalize immediately after but his header went tamely wide, the referee inexplicably awarding Valencia a corner. Barça increased the lead in the 28th minute: a good combination between Alves and Xavi lead to Alves finding Hleb on the left, Hleb laid the ball inside to Henry who sidefooted the ball home past Renan.
Barça started to play some fine football, Messi who had been very quiet, began to find the ball and three times in the space of five minutes he caused problems with his runs towards goal. There were no more goals in the first half but it took just 38 seconds of the second half to score again: Toure's pass was deflected off Joaquin to Hleb, the Valancia defence stopped for a moment believing Hleb to be offside and as play continued Xavi played the ball inside the left back for Alves to run onto before firing low past Renan into the far corner.
Barça were now dominating so much that Valencia were struggling to get out of their own half as Barça forced them into making mistakes. In the 63rd minute Albiol made a mess of intercepting Xavi's pass allowing Hleb a clear run on goal but Renan did well to save diving low to his right. Valencia's frustration was clear and their players earned themselves five yellow cards as they hacked away at Barça's heels. Barça's fourth came in the 79th minute after Alves sent in Bojan on the right and the youngster made a great run into the byline before pulling the ball back to Henry who completed his hat-trick with a simple tap in.
At the start of the season many people said that Barça's impressive form had only been shown against teams of a lower level, but now having beaten Sevilla 0-3 and Valencia 4-0 it is clear that this team has something special and is capable of beating any of the top teams in Europe. Before the game Pep Guardiola appealed against so much euphoria from the press and the fans but given the team's play, results and league position it is difficult as a fan not to be euphoric. Today we saw a good performance from the entire team and it was great to see that some of the less regular players such as Hleb and Gudjohnsen were at a good level. Eric Abidal returned with another fine game continuing the good form he showed before his injury. Rafa Marquez gave another commanding performance in defence and Dani Alves showed again why he is such a special right back as he never stopped getting forward to create problems. Best of all was the Henry hat-trick: he has been better this season but has not been great in front of goal. But he now has seven league goals which would make him top scorer in most teams at this stage of the season, we just happen to have Leo Messi and Samuel Eto'o in our squad to relegate Henry to third place.
We now face Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday but all fans will be thinking about next week's game with Real Madrid. After the disappointments of the last couple of seasons we want revenge. Many will be dreaming of a humilliating defeat for our rivals, but at the end of the day the three points are what matters and if we have to win with a disputed last minute penalty I'll sign for that now.
Barça: Valdés 7; Alves 8, Marquez 8, Puyol 7, Abidal 7.5; Xavi 7 (Keita m83, 6), Toure 7, Gudjohnsen 6.5; Hleb 7 (Bojan m72, 7), Messi 7 (Pedro m81, 6.5), Henry 8.5.
Goals: m20 Henry 1-0, m28 Henry 2-0, m46 Alves 3-0, m79 Henry
Yellow Cards: Barça 0 Valencia 5
Attendance: 82,899
See the goals here - http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ9j83GQ1y0 - thanks darren!
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35 Comments · Add yours
Fellas,
Blaugrana called the game right but was wrong about Henry...hein!!!? I think Nic is really Thierry Henry and got tired of being critized on his own site, so he went out and bagged himself a hat trick!!!
Oh boy...here comes the long dissertation!!!
I am the Bigest fan of Thierry Henry and I am verry happy to watch Henry during he scores goals and he prove today thet he can score more then 2 goals for Barca. Thierry Henry the best player on the world MY MSN
borishenry14@hotmail.com Fan of Henry
i bet we will get bew fans here today cos of henry's feat
nic, u forgot to mention about the build up to henry's 3rd goal, the series of passes before releasing bojan and even the second goal, marquez passed out of our defence to alves who did a 1-2 with xavi b4 releasing hleb who set it up for d master finisher of the day
about henry what i'm most impressed about was that he still played predominantly on the left and scored a hattrick, i understand that when eto is playing, everybody looks for him, but with henry's performance today, i believe he can cheap in with more goals from that left flank if he focuses on his game like he did today, he didnt waste time b4 finishin any of his goals. . . .he was like a robotic finisher looking scary
the whole team was very impressive. . .
how could you give toure a 7. .. . please he deserved at least 8, he was a colossus in d midfield
hleb to had one of his best games though i still wanna see his mad dribbling skills from his arsenal days, i beliv we would soon see them
our defenders were on FIRE, i could not believe that was villa, a whole villa begging for just a free run, puyol, marquez and abidal were so focused on the ball. . . .alves is no more a defender, i'll just call him a player, the sevilla president knew why he held out for that money, he knew alves wasnt normal
would i be wrong in predicting 5 for madrid since we gave sevilla 3 and valencia 4, lol
BARCA $ LIFE!!!!!
No problems Nic
Nice writeup...couldn't agree more with your comments either...thought the "role players" really had a high level of commitment today...Gudi, Hleb etc really did a great job.
The lineup against Shakhtar will be interesting, I wonder just who will be getting the game off. I'm sure Xavi, Messi will see some time on the bench but I'm not sure who else?
Lets hope whatever squad we put out, we get through injury free & can focus on the Classico. I'd take a disputed 96th min penalty anyday too, lets just hope we don't have to rely on something like that, but we put the game away before half time
Also guys, it's GREAT to see that we can display this level of football without a significant impact from Messi. That should prove most people that we are far from a "one man team".
It also means a double threat to our opposition. Show no respect to Messi & he will likely burn you. Focus all your attention on him and the other world class players will destroy you
Go Barca
Yeah, I agree Yaya should get at least an 8 today!!!
this is so impressive. great to see our guys so focused once again.
does anyone know what was up with the new MÉS-logo on our shirts??? please get away
DANI ALVES--WHAT A PLAYER!
i didnt c d game but from what i read, i presumed it was excellent performance from our boys......do u all know of any site where i can c d replay for free? i live in d caribbean
Yep toure's ball over the top and henry's finish was some fantastic football.
Besides the beautiful and complete football (excellent defending) this team is playing, the team unity looks very impressive aswell.
I know things can change fast in the world of football but the way things are looking i can't help but wait to the next round of champions league.
That was incredible. I am not sure what to say. I was so impressed by everything i saw. The work rate of this team is quite phenomenal, even 4-0 up with 2 mins left you have players working their butts off. I think that is the most impressive thing about the way we play. The passing, the skill, the technique of the players, all of that is amazing to watch but its the incredible work rate that wins games like this. They made it look easy and this was not an easy game.
The defense was immense today as well, Yaya is a monster and he is quite simply the best DM in the world. That pass to Henry for the fist goal was world class and he is supposed to be the destroyer. Alves for me was one of our best players today, aside from all the play acting, he was everywhere. The fitness level of these players is amazing. I couldnt be happier for Henry and what a match to raise your game for. He was excellent today. Messi didnt have his best game, it was just one of those days, but when your best player has a bad game and you can still win a game like this 4-0, well it says a hell of a lot.
I will be honest I was worried about this game......I still cannot believe how much we dominated them in the end, i was expecting a much tougher encounter.
With eto'o out for this game, I felt Henry would get the perfect opportunity to start as a centre forward...........but he just kept on sticking to the left wing.
Henry had an amazing performance though. Not only has he been doing the dirty work winning posession and passing, but he is taking shots now too. His hat-trick was all brilliant one-touch finishes............the first one being a vintage henry goal.
Messi played in the centre and barely saw touches of the ball. Playing on the wing he would see a lot of the ball and create major havoc.
Maybe its guardiola's way of making a statement........messi or not, this team will still murder you.
I mean Pep was just yelling out orders and dictating the whole play, controlling each and every move of the players whether it was on attack or defence. He is easily able to take advantage of such immense talent at his disposal.........4-0 against league leaders valencia is no joke. This man is a goddamn genius.
yeah, i dont think we've given pep enough praise yet
all the success of the team now is because of his decisions and the way he has decided to handle the team, just shuffling the 3 forwards alone confused the valencia defence and that was mainly what caused the 2nd goal, b4 they could get to hleb, he had laid it to henry and the rest was history
PEP HAS BEEN EXCELLENT SO FAR
i also cannot wait for the next riund of the champions league, hope thats not overconfidence sha
i have a question.
what's the mes thingie under the neck of the jersey?I dont remember seeing that before today. that had me confused today as i was going around, checking everywhere to see if Barca had new sponsors.
LINK LINK LINK
09/12/n081204106395.html
This is wat the MES thing is.
Hope i helped
I dont even know why teams try crosses against us, especially with captain puyol in the box. Any ball that comes into the box, he takes care of it. Its ridiculous how well he can handle those situations. Villa was tucked in his back pocket all game. Even after hleb's bad giveaway, he stopped villa from definite goal scoring situation by sticking his heel in the way.
you know whats really amazing? The fact that barca has 35 points and a 35 goal differential right now.
Yeah guys, I just have no words to say about that fantastic game! My god, they have simple smashed Valencia!!! Villa had no chance at all.. )) Great performance by Hleb, Toure, Alves (he was simple fantastic!!!!) and of course Henry. Great play!!!! I loved to see that game for all 90 minutes..
thanks diatus, for the shout-out. but anyhow, still took a very focused and fantastic team performance to dispatch this team aside like they were from 2 divisions below us.
first and foremost, people know my stance on henry here, but i honestly say i could not have been more delighted for him last night. i was felt genuinely happy watching him score and enjoy himself. i guess im slightly warming up to him. he really had a fine game and i hope he can use it as a platform. another thing i have noticed from this game and some before is that he and messi seem to have struck up a friendship and i think thats an awesome thing for them. kudos to bojan as well for a superb assist, at first i thought it was xavi and then i realized he was off, bojan really had some silky touches. but i must touch on layibi's good point, that henry played a large part on the left, and even for his 1st, he made a diagonal run to get that ball. i know he struggles on the left, and i partly feel for him, but he can make better use of it going forward, we saw that tonight. this would be the boost he needed
but does anyone here think pep's comments in reply to henry's running comments really helped? i do. i think it got henry fired up and ready to prove a point, and u have to once again be amazed by pep's mentality.
however, despite henry having a great game, i would have to say the man of the match has to be the entire barcelona team, from manager, to VV to the forwards. i thought the entire back 4 were exquisite, i was delighted in particular with abidal right back from injury looking like he finally killed off that useless twin brother of his that pretended to play for him last year. the midfield were amazing, and i agree with hilal, toure is in my mind the best def mid around. honestly this was allround a great performance, it was euphoric to watch.
i see another 3 points vs Madrid, though they are in the shits, they will come far for motivated than valencia i think. FORCA!
It is hard to believe that Barça would be capable of such display against a quality opponent despite the absence of Eto'o and Iniesta and ALLEGEDLY Messi having a quite game ! I'm only going by the fans' comments on the game since I don't watch Barça live but that is another issue. Great win . Next week: Barça 5-1 !!
Wow what a superb game...
Hleb actually took a shot, something I thought i's never see him do in a Barca shirt.
Bojan's pass to Henry was simply delightful. Henry IMO had his best game in a barca shirt and playing on the left wing and scoring a hat-trick is something many of us thought we wouldn't see...
Alves and Toure what more is there to say about them, they've been our best recent signing and are the best in the world in their respective positions.
Abidal played like he never had any injury, while Puyol and Marquez were amazing, between the 2 of them, they had Villa locked away. Any attack comming close to the box and Puyol dealt with it, just amazing.
@ Frede
The Mes logo symbolises Barca's new sociaal responsibility programme, which is aimed at helping to improve the lives of refugees
LINK
LINK
LINK
This partnership really shows that Barca are more then a club, and that Barca are dedicated to improving the world.
Visca El Barca!!!
Is anybody now where I can download torrent match Barcelona Valencia I want to have thet match because Henry play verry good.Please
i was about 2 ask d same thing. espn showed d atletico mar vs sportin game but didnt show d barca vs val game ....pure shit
Hahaha.. I watch the game twice in 5 hours. Its amazing to watch how Tarzan Puyol & Marquez played. Rock solid! I feel the reason of Messi had a quiet game coz of Del Horno. Remember what he did to Messi in C.L.? More game will improve Hleb performance. I wonder what Real Madrid player thinking right now. Humiliating perhaps hehehe...
seriously....seriously!!!! omfg..is this really happening!!?? somebody wake me up...i don't wanna miss el clasico!!
crap.
i admit, barca played undoubtedly amazing, but VILLA
WHAT HAS HE BEEN DOING HIS ENTIRE LIFE.
I wanted Valencia, and i still would go for them over Barca, but man ..
That front three of Henry Eto'o Messi just looks sooo much more formidable now than 24hrs ago... And what a time for those three to be playing like they are.. I say WE bribe the referee next week to keep the goal count to less than 10 else Madrid should deprive us the pleasure of playing them in their own hole....
On Henry's performance.. what can i say.. i had said yesterday that i was hoping for him to come good and shut all of us up.. was he reading this blog?? Coz he did EXACTLY that! I believe his performance yesterday was a bit down to the fact that Eto'o wasnt playing yesterday. If you think about it the situation was very similar to the one he was playing in at Arsenal.
He did'nt start bang down the centre. Instead he played out wider and kept drifting in with or without the ball. Also he seemed to more the target man for the long balls in the first half, where there was no single dominant CF. Messi and Hleb kept switching and Henry kept doing his thing of drifting in from the left which i think suits him more, like at Arsenal where they'd be looking for him but started from left of centre and kept cutting in.. How the image of him side-stepping the defender and curling it into the far post is ingrained our memories..!!
All in all... orgasmic performance
I cant get this out of my head right now.. i know its way too early but ...
CAMPEONES CAMPEONES CAMPEONES!!!!!!
Guys...I'm all for us being overjoyed..but let's break it down to the cold hard facts. This win means NOTHING unless we beat Madrid...THEN we can start thinking about the end prize....
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the great fans that most of us are, but I'm just trying to keep some context.
Nic - Any word on how Iniesta's injury recovery is going?
Man the switching between the front 3 confuses the shit out of defenders, the defence get used to knowing how the one players plays and thens someone else is in that position, man it's good tactics.
, but 1st its Shaktar...
Henry needed the hat-trick and it was the right time as his confidence will be high heading into El Grande Clasico - and he'll be wanting to add to his tall come the game. Eto'o will also want to bang in more goals as he miss this mauling. Our strikers are hungry for RM...
V.V confidence must also be high as he hasn't conceded since Getafe and he'd want to add to his clean sheets this season.
All in all the El Clasico looks to be for us Cules
frede - u should be proud to see the mes logo on the shirts alongside unicef
meshbarca - check out 101greatgoals.com n search under the video tab for fc barcelona v valencia
Valdes - 6.0
Alves - 8.0
Puyol - 7.5
Marquez - 7.5
Abidal - 8.5
Yaya Toure - 8.5
Xavi - 8.5
Guddy - 7.0
Hleb - 7.0
Messi - 7.5
Henry - 9.0
Bojan - 7.0
Pedro - 6.0
Keita - /
J.Guardiola - 10.0
If any of you guys can watch the game again please do so.....i just watched it again and it was so much better the second time round. The way we controlled the game from beginning to end is really something special, our best game so far this season.
I was going to give my man of the match to Henry but after watching it again i have to give it to Dani (despite all the play acting)......he was incredible. I do not think there is a fitter player in world football. Watch the third goal carefully and look at Dani's starting position when Xavi receives the ball in the middle, then watch how far and how fast he runs to enable the pass from the maestro and then the finish.....it was truly spectacular. I always thought that we paid to much for him but now i know....he was worth every last penny.
IT TAKES 11 to make a goal. I belive strongly that Barca is realizing it takes 11. Love one another celebrate enjoy. Not 3 or 4 stars. I believe
Belive in us our faith will put points on the board.
This is the best Barca team I've ever seen. Let's enjoy success and not overannalize our downallfs. Nothing but love and LOVE to all the BARCA FAITHFUL