Barcelona – Celtic: Champions League Second Leg!

By: Isaiah | March 3rd, 2008

Updated version
It’s the second leg of the Champions League first round knockout stage and we’ve got a decided advantage going in. We’re up 3-2 already and we’re at home. That’s fantastic. It’s hard not to be extremely confident in a team with such an advantage, so I’m just going to go ahead and be that cocky prick everyone hates: we’re going to win this.

Celtic are good, make no mistake about it, but we’re better. At home, in front of our crowd, we’re going to have a nice night of attacking football. Celtic will be forced to press forward if they want any sort of chance and that will undoubtedly open them up to swift and merciless counterattacks. Because we’re at such an advantage, we’ll be able to sit back and soak up a bit of pressure, grab control of the ball, and use our superior midfield to stretch their already thin defense. As long as Toure plays well in the middle, we’ll be golden. I don’t expect two straight bad games from Milito and Puyol, especially since I don’t think Celtic can pick up Kun Aguero on a quick one-game loan. If they could, they would.

Here are the various scorelines that would allow us through to the next round:

1. Any win, be it 1-0 or 10-0.
2. Any draw of any scoreline.
3. A loss of 0-1 or 1-2. A 2-3 score would put us into extra time. The team cannot lose by 2 or more or we’re out.

The fear would be that the team comes out flat, knowing it is already so far ahead that it can actually lose the game and still advance. This might allow Celtic to step in and grab an early goal, which would both energize them and give us some jitters that could even allow Celtic to grab another goal. That would be unacceptable, naturally.

Here’s the squad list for tomorrow: Pinto, Valdés, Zambrotta, Puyol, ~~Milito~~Edmilson, Thuram, Sylvinho, Abidal, Touré Yaya, Xavi, Iniesta, Deco, Gudjohnsen, Henry, Bojan, Messi, Eto’o, Ronaldinho.

Expect Messi to start, even if Rijkaard is taking a belligerent stance about his decision to put Leo on the bench for the first 60 minutes of the Atleti match, saying “We’ve lost when Messi was on the pitch, too.” Which is true, but misses the point, which is that a healthy Lionel Messi should never, ever, ever be on the bench. Unless he personally requests to be taken off. Via the page that should permanently be at his disposal. Yeah.

Another thing: start Toure. Just do it. Edmilson should no longer play. With Marquez still out (yikes), it’s Toure all day all night in the middle, ~~with perhaps a replacement for Puyol or Milito by Thuram sometime during the second half.~~ Word from the trainer’s office is that Milito is going to miss out through sickness, meaning Thuram will get the start alongside Puyol. Interestingly, both players are right sided players, so we’ll see who had to switch to the left and how that affects their ability to mark Venegoor of Hesselink. With Zambrotta on the field, we should be able to control their dangerous left side a little better than we were with Puyol, a man who will no doubt be on the warpath thanks to his performance against Atleti on Saturday.

~~I apologize for the quick post, but I’ve got to run off to the Kansas game now. I’ll attempt to update it with more information tomorrow before 1pm.~~ We won 109-51, which is just disgusting. For any neutral who watch, I apologize even though I loved every second of it. A word of warning: I will be somewhat out of commission during March Madness, though I plan on watching the Barca game as long as it doesn’t conflict with Kansas. I will probably not come up with either a preview or a review of the Valladolid home match, so if you’d like to try your hand at blogging, please send me an email and let me know you’d like to. All I ask is that you be smart, funny, a Harvard PhD, and conversational in Swahili. Being a Barcelona fan would be a positive too.