Espanyol 1 – 1 Barcelona: Topsy Turvy Whirling Derby
By: kelsey | January 9th, 2012In the clash of the Catalans Barcelona lost more precious ground to Real Madrid in a roller coaster of game tonight as Espanyol capitalized on Barcelona’s lackluster play and equalized late.
Feel your pain, Cesc. Rough game.
Barcelona’s starting line-up consisted of Valdes in net, Puyol, Pique, and Abidal on defense, Xavi, Cesc, Busquets, and Iniesta as the midfield diamond, and Alves, Messi, and Alexis on the attack. While it was the same side that started versus Real Madrid, Pep chose to go with a more offensive formation for most of the match. On the other end, Espanyol fielded: Cristian, Raul Rodriguez, Amat, Hector Moreno, Didac, Weiss, Romaric, Verdu, Forlin, Thievy, and Sergio Garcia.
Whistle blows and we’re off to the races. In the opening minutes, Espanyol attacks and Valdes makes a great save to deny Verdu at the far post then Pique makes a goal line clearance to deny Verdu again when he strikes the rebound. Phew, too close for comfort.
After some short passes in the midfield, Xavi sends a lovely long ball to Alexis who could’ve been clean one on one with the keeper, but in his first of many botches this evening, Alexis mishandles the ball and the chance is lost. I like the Chilean, but boy was he painful to watch tonight. Espanyol’s defense wasn’t doing themselves many favors and nearly gifted a goal to Barcelona minutes later. An errant pass gives Messi the ball in the box with only the keeper and Cesc for company. He passes the ball to Cesc for an easy put away, but unfortunately Messi handles the ball in the build up and ends up with a yellow instead of an assist.
A few minutes later Cesc does see his name go up on the scoresheet. Xavi, orchestrating the attack, sends a nice ball to Dani on the wing. Dani finds Cesc in the center right outside the box and Cesc perfectly times his run to meet Dani’s cross head on sending the ball to the back of the net. 1-0 Barca.
Cesc and his golden noggin score Barca’s 100th goal of the season!
Espanyol’s pace and pressing is clearly rattling Barca’s midfield as the squad is giving up far too many balls and the team is losing discipline on Espanyol’s counters. Valdes is again called into action to make a good save denying Sergio Garcia. Minutes later Abidal makes a beautiful block to stop a shot from close range.
On the other end, Iniesta and Alexis connect but the keeper makes the save on Iniesta’s one timer. Otherwise Alexis, who is largely left to his own devices by the defense, cannot use the space he’s given and is wasteful with his chances even managing to hit the corner flag on one shot. Marginally off target I’d say. Half ends with Espanyol looking more dangerous than Barcelona. Time for a Pep talk.
The leap? Very nice. The passing tonight? Not so much.
Barcelona comes out in the second half looking as though they are just going through the motions and things start to get nastier in the stadium with more physical fouls and poor behavior from the fans. At one point, the fans threw a coke can at the ref after he made a controversial call and made ugly comments to Dani all night. Not okay.
Dani shoots the ball while the fans shoot off their mouths. Completely unacceptable.
Barcelona struggles continue as the transition defense through the middle is far too open giving Espanyol space to counter attack. Errant passes abound and Messi is seemingly nowhere to be found. Barca isn’t creating many scoring chances though aside from one free kick Alexis wins in a dangerous spot right outside the box, but Xavi’s shot sails well over the bar.
Perhaps Messi’s still feeling a bit ill? Abi will kiss it and make it better.
Espanyol’s keeper, who wasn’t having a great night to begin with, was stretchered off after appearing to strain or possibly even tear a ligament in his knee. Let’s hope not. Aside from the unfortunate injury, the second half was going well for Espanyol who were threatening on the attack and capitalizing on Barcelona’s lethargy. With less than 10 minutes in regulation, Thievy crosses from the right and flicks on for Álvaro to stoop low and head past Valdés for the equalizer. The game is tied and Barcelona finally seems to come more alive.
With a leprechaun-like leap, Alvaro clicks his heels and can see a tie their city rivals is at the end of the rainbow.
In the final minutes of the game, Barca makes one final push with practically everyone on the attack. Pique nearly scores hitting the crossbar and the rebound goes to Pedro. Pedrito hits a good low shot that appeared to be heading to the net when it is blocked by the hand of an Espanyol defender. Barca cry out for and deserve a penalty shot, but the ref missed it, and the final whistle blows.
Thoughts:
In keeping with an unfortunate trend for away games during this season, Barcelona didn’t play anywhere near the level they are capable of and lost ground to Moudrid as a result. Tactically, Barcelona had too many players forward for most of the game leaving the defense badly exposed. We now sit 5 points behind Madrid and will need them to drop points to have a chance at the league title. Of course there is still much season left to be played so hope is not lost. Visca Barca!
Downtrodden, but not out of the La Liga race yet…come on, boys!
Player Ratings:
VV – 8.5: Barcelona’s MOTM both for making a few great saves and also for staying calm and error-free while most of the rest of the team daydreamed. Now if only VV could score a Tim Howard-esque goal from his own box…I’m sure it is just a matter of time.
Abidal – 7.5: One of the best on the pitch for Barcelona tonight; steady defending and largely error-free.
Pique – 6: This was another tale of two Piques. Good Geri is one of the best in the world at his position, making a goal line stop, calmly acting as the last line of defense, and using his considerable ball skills on defense and offense. Bad Geri seems to have his head in the clouds letting plays bounce of his shins for corners and making poor, potentially dangerous back passes and tackles.
Puyol – 5.5: Not a great match for Barcelona’s captain as Pep perhaps asked too much of him. Simply couldn’t mark close enough and cover the amount of ground he needed to with Alves playing up to ward off Espanyol’s good counters, and lost his man at the end of the game which led to the Espanyol equalizer.
Busquets – 4.5: unusually loose game for Busi who made some careless passes and was rather lackadaisical on defense. Like the rest of the squad, Busi just didn’t seem on tonight.
Xavi – 6: Quiet game by the Maestro’s lofty standards. Orchestrated in the middle but didn’t control the flow of the game the way he normally does.
Iniesta – 6: Like Xavi, Iniesta had a quiet game. Threatened some on offense and was fouled repeatedly as he ghosted by players, but Iniesta’s play wasn’t up to his usual high standards tonight.
Cesc – 5.5: Scored Barca’s lone goal and helped spring a few attacks on offense in the first half, but was invisible for spells of the game especially in the second half and had a number of errant passes.
Alves – 5: Should’ve been switched back to a fullback much earlier on in this match; Dani had the nice cross to Cesc for the goal, but otherwise didn’t contribute all that much on offense and gave away the ball like it was candy through parts of the game as he is somewhat apt to do.
Alexis – 3: Hmm how do I put this nicely, Alexis was downright awful this match. I have no idea why Pep kept him in during the second half. Blew Barca’s best chances in the first half, gave the ball away practically every time he touched it and just seemed totally out of sync this evening. Know Alexis is an excellent forward; hope to never see a performance like tonight’s again.
Messi – 5.5: As hard as it is to fathom, Messi was largely invisible tonight. Helped lead a few attacks on offense, but for much of the game he just wasn’t involved.
Subs:
Pedro – 8: one of the few other bright spots for Barca tonight was how well Pedro did when he came on for Alexis. Brought much needed energy and nearly scored and very much deserved a penalty for the handball that prevented his shot from going into the net. On his way to earning back his starting position with tonight’s showing.
Keita – N/A: came in very late; didn’t have an impact on the game one way or the other.
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