CL Preview: Barça – Shakhtar, Tuesday 2:45pmEST, ESPN Deportes

By: Isaiah | December 8th, 2008

So we beat Valencia on Saturday to move 6 points clear of 2nd-placed Villarreal (35pts-29pts), pushed our goals scored to 44 in 14 games (3.14 per game), and thanks to our clean sheet dropped our goals allowed to 0.64 per game (9 in 14 games). Holy crapola. Now, before we play Real Madrid in El Clásico, we’ve got our final Champions League match against Shakhtar Donetsk.

We beat them last time in a Messi-inspired thriller that left even Kevin grasping at imagery and metaphors, though not words in general. I was on a business trip then and damned lucky to catch the match. This time around I think I’ll be in the comfortable confines of my home with the cat wondering why I’m home so early and disturbing her usual resting place with my yells.

As I wrote in the comments of Kevin’s preview of that game,

I thought Shaktar were being extraordinarily cynical/lame/unsporting when they asked for the ball back before Messi’s first goal. If the player who was injured was injured during the play that the ball was kicked out on, how can anyone mean to kick it out for them? It was just a clearance and it’s not Barcelona’s fault that they stopped playing. Never. Stop. Playing. All teams should be sporting, but you can’t take it too far.

2-2 going into the 80th minute would have been an acceptable scoreline for me, though; Valdes made a terrific save against Ilsinho in the first half that I was positive was going into the back of the net. Nice job, Valdes! The second is not his fault whatsoever (no more than Messi’s second was Pyatov’s fault).

If this were a real match rather than a final hurrah in the group stage, I would probably think they’d be coming in with cleats up and teeth bared and that Yaya would take those cleats and teeth and place them in the nearest Shakhtar…okay that was about get too graphic for this family-oriented site, but you get the picture. That’s the thing, though: it’s not a real match because we’re assured of first place in the group no matter what happens not only in our match, but also in the Sporting CP-Basel match. No matter that Shakhtar put 5 on Basel last time around, they’re still parachuting to UEFA.

Maybe they’ll come in hard in revenge for our win in their stadium, but I don’t know what that would get them other than red cards and ire. For our part, we’ve got a squad list that consists of a lot of subs:

Jorquera, Pinto, Cáceres, Piqué, Sylvinho, Abidal, Gudjohnsen, Busquets, Keita, Hleb, Bojan, Henry, Pedro, Víctor Sánchez, Víctor Vázquez, Botía, Abraham, Xavi Torres.

So, to put it another way, we’re resting Valdes, Alves, Puyol, Marquez, Toure, Xavi (Hernandez), Eto’o, and Messi. That’s an 8-man mega unit if there ever was one. Perhaps they’re going to start forcing us to play that way (a 3-2-2) just to make things fair.

Do you know who Botía and Xavi Torres are? I don’t. Check ‘em out in training. They’re no longer wearing their Més gear, so perhaps that thing is done. I loved seeing the billboards in the background for it during the Valencia match, by the way.

If you don’t follow Barça Atlètic, feel free to check out their official page. Apparently they’re on a 7-game unbeaten streak and are 11th in their division (18 points behind leaders Villarreal B — compare that to 11th placed Malaga being 17 points behind us in the Primera). Perhaps our famous cantera is finally getting back to form in terms of on-the-field performances rather than simply supplying us, Barnum and Bailey style, with the greatest show on earth.*

Here’s my question, though: Where is Gai Assulin? Is he still too young at 17 to bring up to the first team? He played 2 weeks ago against Alzira on November 30 (though I don’t know if he played against Ontinyent on Saturday). Perhaps Guardiola, who coached him last year, doesn’t have the confidence in him that so many others do, or perhaps he doesn’t feel the need to rush the kid into the fray simply for the sake of doing so. We do have Bojan, Pedro, Henry, and Víctor Vázquez all up front, though why not rest Henry and put in Gai as a late sub? I don’t know about that, but I know I trust in Guardiola. It’s merely some food for thought.

So we’ll have a young team out there for a meaningless game. The older guys who get stuck on the field with them might not really bother to show up, but that’s bad form. The “kids” should be out to prove themselves and get some serious match time, so hopefully we’ll see some serious talent on display. Bojan specifically needs to use the last game as a springboard to propel him into the lofty heights of awesomedom where we know he can happily reside. He needs to work hard and make his chances count rather than ineffectively balloon the ball over the bar for the hundredth time.

Who will start? I don’t know. What will happen? I don’t know. So, what use am I? Well, I’m here to tell you the official predictions.

Starting lineup: Pinto, Victor Sanchez, Pique, Caceres, Abidal, Busquets, Keita, Hleb, Bojan, Pedro, Henry.

Official score prediction: 1-1. Sorry, Kevin, your 2nd time in the Camp Nou won’t be as cool.

And just in case you were wondering, yes, tis the season to get your Barack Obama caganer. What’s a caganer? Look no farther.

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*For those of you who don’t know or with short memories, our cantera has brought us: Valdes, Puyol, Pique, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Bojan, Pedro, and Busquets as well as Jorquera, Víctor Sánchez, Víctor Vázquez, Botía, Abraham, and Xavi Torres. Whether or not some of those last ones are worth mentioning is up to others who have seen them play, but they’re definitely not contributors at this point (only Víctor Sánchez has played a game for the first team this season and Jorquera is the only one with any other first team experience). We also produced Cesc Fabregas and like a billion other awesome players. I’m going to take credit for LeBron James, for one. And Wayne Gretzky. We’re so cool.