Numancia 1 Barça 0
Sunday, 31 August 08, 02:10 PM · Comments (23)
Barça began the new league campaign with a horribly disappointing 1-0 defeat to newly promoted Numancia. Barça never recovered from an early goal from Mario, and as we have seen so many times before, the team lacked patience in the build-up which led to wayward passes and fruitless dribbles. Numancia packed their defence leaving little room for Barça's forwards and when the chances came we were guilty of poor finishing.
Barça started well enough and Leo Messi forced the first save of the game with a low drive from outside the area after two minutes, then in the tenth minute Samuel Eto'o volleyed over from Iniesta's cross from the right. However, with Numancia's first real attack of the game they went ahead on 13 minutes: Bellvis found himself in space to cross and both Puyol and Abidal followed centre forward Gorka Brit leaving Mario free at the far post where he fired home from 15 yards giving Valdés no chance.
Barça nearly bounced straight back after a good build-up from Iniesta, Eto'o and Messi put Thierry Henry through but his shot was blocked by goalkeeper Pablo. Then in the 17th minute Eto'o hit a curler from 25 yards which clipped the top of the crossbar. After this, however, the chances dried up as Barça lost their patience, only a couple of dangerous crosses from Xavi and Iniesta caused any alarm to Numancia's defence but no forward could get on the end of them.
The second half saw much of the same: long shots going wide, crosses that found nobody, and passes through the middle that were intercepted. Hleb, Keita and Bojan came on, Messi played in the hole behind the strikers, but the penetration wasn't there. As Numancia played deeper and deeper the chances began to arrive: Eto'o forced a diving save with a snap shot in the 69th minute, then Bojan forced his way through before shooting straight at the keeper. Bojan and Eto'o both had chances with headers but both were off target.
In injury time Barça won the first dangerous free kick of the game but Messi's shot came back off the far post with the keeper beaten. It summed up Barça's luck in a game where we created 11 goal opportunities to Numancia's one.
Numancia deserve credit for defending doggedly throughout, but Barça will need to find ways to get past teams that play like this. There are questions to be asked as once more we concede a goal with an unmarked player sneaking in at the far post. However, in general we cannot complain about the commitment of the team, it seems that sometimes we can try too hard when we go behind in a game and many players were guilty of trying too hard to find an equalizer on their own. There were too many lost passes through the middle, too many poor shots from outside the area and too many dribbles that went nowhere. No player can be said to have had a good game but especially disappointing was Dani Alves making his league debut and Leo Messi who tried all he could but had no luck with anything he did. We now have a two week break before the next league game and Pep Guardiola will have to try to correct things while the majority of players are away on international duty.
Barça: Valdés 6, Alves 4.5, Marquez 5.5, Puyol 6, Abidal 5; Xavi 5.5, Toure 5.5 (Hleb m57, 6), Iniesta 5.5 (Keita m66, 6); Messi 5, Eto'o 5.5, Henry 5.5 (Bojan m61, 5).
Goal: m13 Mario 1-0
Barça yellows: Puyol m42, Eto'o m80.
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Yaya shoud not start in front of Keita. That goal was ridiculous. If you are a right back , as in the case of Danni Alves, and you want to play like a forward well doggit you will give up the cross. I bet you Valdes could have defended the shot better had he stayed in his box.
All of you nostalgics,
I hope you cut the crap and recognize that we were too one dimensional...Again, Thierry Henry shouldn't even be allowed on the bench...he is useless!!
Terrible terrible day for me...I called in sick at work just to support the team in the first day, and this is what I get?? It's a disastrous result...Altho the league is not won or lost in the first day, we should all be alarmed by this performance....Abidal was useless...Danny was a disappointment...His penchant for goin forward made us suffer today cuz that guy made the assist from the right....and that damn Abidal was nowhere near that Mario guy....Xavi, INiesta, Toure, Messi, Henry, Etoo, in short all the players had an off day....Messi kept on tryin hard..That freeekick shoulda gone in...damn...There's no doubt abt his commitment (only if everyone was committed like him), but still, we expected somethin more from him...I would still say that he was the best player on this pitch for us, but that's not sayin much cuz our players were all pretty bad...Anyways, it def. brought back those painful memories of the past 2 seasons....I mean there was no sense of urgency at all until the last 5 mins or so...I just hope we bounce back from this defeat and give this season a different finale from the last 2 seasons...
If Barca continue play like that, i bet you this season we will have no trophy to win! what a shit!! i don't know why it has been so hard to score and play like pre-season games! I'M VERY DISSAPPOINTED!
AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i was so mad when i heard this i nearly smashed my computer!
dissapointing to say the least
Well Valencia and Sevilla won and they won by a lot. I told you that RM was not the team tto worry about this year!!!
23 Comments · Add yours
disappointing, and i dont think i am being hard on them.
Oh well, at least Real Madrid lost as well.