Barcelona 2 – 3 Shakhtar: The Little Uns Get Their Runout

By: Isaiah | December 9th, 2008

Baby Kxevin is not going to be happy with Baby Bojan. I know that much. It was a frustrating match for most of the time, but I’ll admit that there were flashes of brilliance that made me happy that our cantera is so good. I didn’t expect to win this match, but I also didn’t expect to see us in a 1-3 hole, either.

So to the match, which I watched without notes for some reason. Our starting lineup consisted of Jorquera, Caceres, Pique, Victor Sanchez, Sylvinho, Busquets, Keita, Victor Vazquez, Hleb, Bojan, Pedro. That’s a very good mix of youth and experience, if you ask me, and I was fairly excited to see what came of it.

For the first 30 minutes, the game was 100% ours. If Shakhtar had the ball for more than 3 passes in a row during that time, I didn’t notice it; the ESPN Deportes commentators were gushing about how despite their inexperience and supposed lack of talent, this reserve squad was tearing things up, just like the first team and while I disagree with that statement from a fluidity point-of-view, it certainly seemed like a 4-0 thrashing was on the way.

But then, of course, I ruined everything by wondering to myself when these young guns would get tired from all that scurrying about. Precisely 15 seconds later, they scored. Oops, my bad, everyone. Caceres may have been a seriously good left back in his previous game, but in this one he left something to be desired as a right back. And that something was defense. He had one Caceres-style flying tackle on a ball that was going out of bounds and otherwise was mostly playing what looked like right attacking mid. He was caught out on the first goal, caused the second goal with poor defending, and was caught out on the third goal. But other than that I was pretty impressed with him (he also allowed Brandão in on goal, but the lumbering jerkoff couldn’t put it on target).

Caceres wasn’t aided in his pursuit of glory by Jorquera, though, who completely blew the second goal with some serious Isaiah-style goalkeeping (run towards the lofted ball until it’s over your head and then turn around and run the other way to try to catch up to it — I swear it works!), and then just didn’t have the athletic ability to get to the third goal. Yeah, that’s why we kept Pinto around for another year and should promote someone (anyone!) from the youth squads. Sorry, Albert, but your days in blaugrana are numbered.

Their third goal was a combination of bad marking by Caceres and Victor Sanchez, who let Fernandinho go at the back post, and, of course Jorquera’s inability to get to the ball. Valdes makes that save, I’m pretty sure. He also makes the second one. The first goal was not Jorquera’s fault in the least, but rather just bad marking by Caceres on the wing and Pique in the middle.

Our goals were exquisite, to be honest. The first was just a ridiculously sweet shot from Sylvinho, of all people, after a slick series of interchanges between Hleb, Sylvinho, and Keita. Pyatov had nothing on that shot, really. It was one of those crazy knucklers that if you paused it as it impacted with the player’s foot and asked everyone if it was going to go in or 8 miles wide, you’d have 90% of your Who Wants to Be A Millionaire audience pushing the “wide” button on the keypad in front of them. Yet it went in and we were back in the game 1-2.

The second goal we scored was actually a much better goal, in terms of set up and finish. Guddy drops an inch-perfect, flicked pass into the path of Busquets and the big kid puts it in the back of the net with a nice one-on-one finish. The defense just sorta opened wide and took one up the middle. Apparently that’s all we had to do: ball, middle in the air, goal.

I say that not because we had so many free open headers (we had a couple), but if Bojan can get open in the box on a lofted pass like he did towards the very end, then your defense is not good at dealing with balls in the air. Bojan is like 3 feet 4 inches or something. And he weighs 8 pounds. So if you can’t gain position on him when a ball is in the air…jeez, imagine what Hernan Crespo in his prime would do to you. Pedro had an open header, if you can remember that early in the match.

So then it’s 2-3 and we’re just hanging out, right? Wrong, we’re driving hard for the final goal and, like in our previous match with them, Shakhtar starts to foul the hell out of us. They earned 4 yellow cards in a single minute! The ESPN Deportes commentators wanted Brandão red carded for his blatant elbow to Busquet’s head. If Luis Fabiano got one for something similar, then Brandão certainly deserved one there. I disliked him before, but now Evaeverson Lemos da Silva is in my top 5 least favorite players. And somehow I think that that would make him happy.

Who, though, was blown away enough by Shakhtar’s incredible display of positive football? UEFA, of course, who have to be. Their headline? “Sublime Shakhtar undo youthful Barça“.

Dictionary.com defines sublime thus:
1. elevated or lofty in thought, language, etc.
2. impressing the mind with a sense of grandeur or power; inspiring awe, veneration, etc.
3. supreme or outstanding
4. complete; absolute; utter

Uh, which one of those applies to Shakhtar’s appalling display of brute force and sharp elbows? Pique was right to get in Brandão’s face for that tackle. Yeah, Brandão was committing a foul because his teammate was “injured” but the replay that ESPN Deportes showed (and which the commentators laughed at) clearly shows that that player (was it Gladkiy?) faked his injury. Barcelona knew it and so for the second game in a row against Shakhtar, they ignored a faking player in the last few minutes and didn’t put it out into touch. Good. I’m glad they didn’t. If it’s “sportsmanship” to put it out when someone is injured, then it better sure as hell be “sportsmanship” to not fake injuries. The player bounced back up once Brandão’s tackle went in, by the way. Srna too faked an injury and then at the last possible moment jumped up and hobbled off the field so that he could delay just a few seconds longer.

And for those of you keeping track of such things, there is a difference in my mind between Bojan’s revenge tackle and the sort of things that Shakhtar were doing. Bojan was pissed because he was being given knees and elbows and shoves for 50 minutes and the ref was doing relatively little about it. So yeah, he put one in on Kucher, who should know better than to cry like a little baby and continue to flip over and over on the ground like he was hit by train. You were hit by a Bojan, not a Toure! You can tell because your legs are still attached to your body.

Of course, Bojan did dive and earn a freekick and Kucher reacted and knew it was a bad idea immediately. Whatever came out of his mouth, man, it turned him from a screaming maniac to a regretful man in under one second. Sorry, Kucher, but you didn’t deserve that yellow card. Perhaps a different one, but not that one.

So now the player ratings. Before I get started, I feel the need to point this out: the numbers are not suggestive of how I feel about the player’s future with the club. I am not capable, on the back of a single game whose inner workings I am unaware of, of comprehensively judging any player. I had never seen that assortment of players together before, so I wasn’t quite sure what positions they would play and how they would interact. My ratings are based, again, on starting with a 5 and working my way up or down depending on good actions or bad. Perhaps this time I’ll explain my ratings better this time, but I have a feeling you, whoever you are, will have at least one gripe.

Ratings:
Jorquera: 3. Little was asked of him, but he failed on both occasions when something was asked of him. The first goal was not his fault, but he played a major part in the second and the third. I think that if he’d been given enough opportunities, I bet he would have earned a 0.

Caceres: 4. He gets a 4 despite being implicated in all 3 goals because he contributed quite a bit to the midfield pressure and had a couple of good crosses that weren’t met by anyone. Definitely struck me as versatile, but needing more playing time.

Pique: 5. He keeps stranding himself in the center circle. Learn that Yaya or Busquets is going to be there and cover your man over the top.

Victor Sanchez: 6. While he’s probably ultimately culpable for the third goal, he was fairly strong throughout and I was actually pretty impressed with his mobility and versatility in covering the wing that Sylvinho left open.

Sylvinho: 7. I thought he played a very strong offensive game and could have used a few more diagonal runs by players named Bojan to get on the end of some of his crosses. Fantastic goal and good work rate throughout. I’d have to watch the third goal again to see if he was out of position or not.

Busquets: 7. Excellent work rate, but I thought that he was too desperate to get to some of the balls he lost and thus opened up the midfield when he ran to the edge of their box. A bit more self-control on fouls would be nice, but that’s something that comes with time. Good game by the youngster and very calmly taken goal.

Keita: 5. Despite being given the moniker Reverse Monument for his continued forays forward when he should have been staying in midfield, Keita had a decent game. He’s still way too slow with his passes and he’s way too clumsy with the ball at his feet. I’m somewhat confused as to what his role was supposed to be today, so I’m having a hard time judging whether or not he did it well…

Hleb: 7. His best game yet in blaugrana. He was willing to attack, shoot, pass, and even yell at his teammates when they didn’t make the proper runs. A couple of his incisive crosses should have ended up in the back of the net. He disappeared a couple of times, but never for long.

Pedro: 6. Some cute dribbling skills, but he needs to start putting shots on goal to be considered for the real first team. Still, his work rate was there and he tried to combine with other players several times. Him coming off first (and in the end as the only sub) surprised me, though he was on my short list of people who needed subbed.

Victor Vazquez: 5. He had some good moments, especially after Guddy came on and three shots on goal, but he wasn’t a contributing factor in many passing moves. Like with Keita I had a hard time judging exactly what his role was supposed to be until Guddy came on and he switched to the wing.

Bojan: 3. Bojan sucked today. But he tried hard and that is worth something. In fact, it’s worth exactly 1 point. This was his chance and I was really rooting for him. I can’t fault him for getting the chances because that’s what strikers need to do, but I can fault him for blowing all of them. I almost pulled my hair out at the end when he just. would. not. put. it. away. Argh! This kid is so good, but he’s not showing it at all! He’s only 18 and I want to consider that when judging him, but at what point do we stop pampering our thoughts on him?

Subs:
Gudjohnsen: 8. Seriously, our best player. His entrance into the game changed the flow and the pace dramatically. I’m more liberal with points for subs because if they obviously contribute over a 15 minute span, then they did their job well and deserve to be rated as such. However, it is a sub rating, which is different to me than a 90-minute rating.

Guardiola: 5. This is just middle-of-the-road because I saw no reason whatsoever to keep Botia and Abraham on the bench. The game meant nothing, so give them experience, give them a chance to run with the big boys. At least keep 2 of your players from playing 90 minutes when they didn’t need to (Victor Vazquez, for instance).

Brandão: -2. Jerk.