Valencia 0, Barcelona 0, a.k.a. “It could’ve been much worse”

So, we returned from international break, plagued with rumours and injuries (real and imagined), to take on Valencia at the Mestalla stadium, after having earned six victories in the first six fixtures of the Liga. Valencia’s main asset, David Villa, couldn’t recover in time and was not included in the squad, while only Thierry Henry was absent from our side, and we were recovering Bojan and Iniesta.

And we got completely and totally *owned*.

As it is, I’m not entirely dissatisfied with the result, to be honest. Valencia played a damn fine game last night, and Barça… well, Barça didn’t. Sure, we weren’t *bad* (I don’t think we’re constitutionally capable of it at this point), but we were far from last season’s Pep Show Boys.

This draw gives us a valuable point in one of the toughest fixtures we have this month, and it keeps us at the top of the table for yet another week. Moreover, it gives Pep the perfect chance to tear the team a new one and get them out of the rut that was starting to show against Almería before the international break. Guardiola is not going to be pleased with us breaking that lovely run of victories we had going on and no doubt he is going to give some lectures and make some changes for this week’s games against Rubin Kazan and Zaragoza.

“Now, now, little one, don’t cry, someday I’ll let you score, alright? Just not today…”

The lineup last night was Valdés, Alves, Puyol, Piqué, Abidal, Yaya, Xavi, Keita, Iniesta, Pedro and Messi.

Guardiola played Iniesta for the injured Henry, after all doubts on his fitness had been dismissed by the great match he played on Wednesday for Spain, and he placed Messi (for the first time in the starting XI after returning from international matches) in Ibrahimovic’s place, bringing in Pedrito to play on the right (Zlatan was reported feeling pain in his knee, after the match against Albania, and Pep didn’t want to risk it). We were without two of our star strikers, and half the team was tired and jet-lagged, but it looked good on paper nevertheless.

Now, when the time came to play…

Valencia played damn well all throughout the first half. Damn, they played miles better than us. They stifled us in the midfield, defended well and were damn fast when the time came to set up a counterattack. In fact, only luck, skill and a linesman who was a bit of a stickler, kept Pablo Hernández or Juan Mata from scoring; if that had been Villa, instead of his younger and more inexperienced teammates, Valencia would have scored before halftime, maybe even more than once. Valdés had several opportunities to show off, and he took each and every one of them, including a minute of “going goalie” (the footballing equivalent of “going postal”) after an episode of shoddy defending that didn’t have any consequences thanks to Keita’s last-minute intervention.

Our problem was that we were getting owned in the midfield. Valencia’s four defenders and three midfielders (Miguel, Navarro, Dealbert, Bruno, Albelda, Mathieu and Banega ) converged on anyone wearing blaugrana who so much as dared to touch the ball and didn’t let them do anything with it. Xavi was less than his usual majestic self, Messi wasn’t there (honestly, did any of you see him last night?) and Pedro was nervous and no match for Miguel. Iniesta, on the contrary, looked classier than ever, but the ball just wasn’t getting to him.

And damn, they breed them fast in Valencia, don’t they? As soon as they stole the ball from us in the midfield, Bruno, Albelda or Banega lobbed it nicely across the field, and there went Mata, Pablo H. and Silva haring off after it, more often than not getting away with it. A couple of close offside calls, some good saves from Valdés (and if it’s me saying this, you can take my word for it, they were *good*) , and Piqué and Puyol’s consistent capacity for being at the right place at the right time, plus the inexperience of the two young valencianistas, kept Mestalla from starting a somewhat-deserved celebration.

On our side… well, we had some chances too, during the first half. Two, to be exact. A really nice opportunity by Iniesta, which César cleared very well, and something of a chance by Keita. But two chances in forty-five minutes is not really something to be proud of, is it? Messi was uncomfortable playing as a false “9”, and after some twenty minutes, he tried switching places with Pedro, moving to the right to be closer to Dani Alves. This helped a little, and after thirty minutes or so Barcelona looked a bit more like the team which spoiled us for other clubs last season, but the spark just wasn’t there and Valencia were determined to continue what they had started so well.

Cruel though it may seem, I saw a bit of hope for us after Silva started feeling pain on his side after knocking down Puyol (yes, you heard right, little Silva fouled Captain Caveman and sent him crashing to the ground… the Canarian is *good*!), but he got over it and the first half finished with Valencia recovering the control of the match.

So *that*'s where you were hiding all throughout the match, Leo...

Luckily for us, Valencia slowed down a little in the second half and stopped making so many nerve-wracking counterattacks, no doubt exhausted after their wonderful performance during the first forty-five minutes of the match. Instead of Silva, Mata and Pablo Hernández, the names coming up were Banega, Albelda and Bruno, who effectively kept our team bogged down in the midfield.

The ball simply wasn’t getting anywhere near to where it could be a threat to César. The seven valencianistas who Unai Emery had placed there to stop the blaugrana attack were effectively swarming the Barça players who took the ball, and with Xavi slower than usual and Messi nowhere to be seen, it was down to Touré Yaya, Keita and Iniesta to try and break down the wall. A couple times we were close to getting there, and as the minutes passed and Valencia started showing the effects of the high-tension game they played during the first half, Barça once again started resembling Barça, but it was too little, too late, and Valencia were far from dead.

Xavi got one of his wonderful passes to Pedrito, who didn’t stumble with his own feet, but his nemesis of the night, Miguel, saved that nice shot on goal. In revenge, Pablo H. tried a cheeky shot from his own half that Valdés tipped just over the net after a few seconds of culés everywhere holding our breath. The referee summed up his odd approach to the night by ignoring a foul on Dani Alves after everyone had stopped the game, thus giving Silva a golden opportunity that Valdés snatched away in a wonderful display of cold blood.

Near the end, Pedrito got a reprieve from Miguel’s incessant marking when Bojan came in his place, and soon after that, Xavi made way for Busquets, but the match was too broken for those changes to make any difference. Touré Yaya, a man Barça is lucky to have, had the best chance a couple of minutes before the end of the match, but César, though far less providential than Valdés, was no less good at his job.

In the end, Barça walked away with a feeling of relief. It wasn’t pretty and we probably should have lost, but we got a precious point and we’re still at the top of the table.

After the match, Pep remarked that “the draw isn’t a failure” and cheerfully predicted that “we will lose many more points in what’s left of the season”, but he was his usually optimistic self in front of the press, congratulated Valencia on a match well-played and came to Messi’s defence, saying that “he played well and connected well” (really, Pep? Did you watch the same match I did?). Piqué, talking to all of us who always expect Barça to win, sternly told us that “we didn’t lose two points, we earned one” and Dani Alves conceded that the result was “fair, even though we had better chances, but weren’t accurate” (”better chances”, Dani? You do realise Barça weren’t the guys playing in white, don’t you?).

No, Pep, don’t clap, you’ll only encourage them to keep playing like that… and stop shaving your head, pretty please!

Here’s my overall opinion of the team (be prepared for some heavily subjective grading, I can’t be impartial when it comes to my boys):

Valdés: 9 The MOTM. And this is from me, part of that vocal minority who thinks we deserve a better goalkeeper, but damn, VV was in fine form last night, especially on the one-on-ones with Pablo H.

Piqué: 8,5 The only thing this man can’t do well is dress; fantastic positioning, really nice clearances, and there was a moment, late in the second half, I honestly thought he was just going to run the length of the pitch and score (he’s done it before).

Puyol: 7,5 Sure, he made a couple of mistakes, and he is slower when compared with Piqué, but he made some crucial tackles, was always in position, and put in their place all those youngsters who tried to get one past him; Mata particularly suffered from his hard work.

Alves: 4 It was not Dani’s night; there were no traces last night of the Steel Hummingbird we had as a right-back last season, and his attempts to shoot on goal were laughable, to say the least. He deserved the yellow he got near the end of the match, too.

Abidal: 5,5 He’s improved a lot, Eric has; solid on the defence, though a bit slow in the attack, he combined nicely with Keita and Yaya when he could and made Pablo H’s life just that little bit more difficult.

Keita: 6’5 Another player who has improved a lot from last season, he played as well as the Valencia players let him and had a couple of nice attempts at goal; it was a good idea of Pep to play him tonight instead of Busquets.

Touré Yaya: 8,5 Our Tower of Strength was magnificent last night, as usual; one of the few blaugrana players who refused to lose the ball to the Valencia midfield, and who got it back when he did, he also made a very nice attempt on goal that almost got past César.

Xavi: 4,5 Harsh though it may seem, Our General was not himself last night; bad passes, no playmaking… and this time he didn’t even have the excuse of nasty marking, as he did against Almería, so I’m going to blame Del Bosque and the international break.

Iniesta: 7,5 He’s fully fit and full of class, even if he couldn’t do much due to the ball not getting to him much; our best chance at goal came from his boots and it’s just nice to have him back, because it really does make a difference when he’s on the pitch.

Messi: 3 Where was he last night? Have the Argentineans replaced him with a clone? He had exactly one shot on goal and a couple of runs, and even the passes from Iniesta died when they got to his feet.

Pedro: 4 Poor dear was nervous and Maduro Miguel (I meant Miguel, got my Ms confused, thanks to Martijn for pointing it out!) totally and completely owned him; he’s not ready for this kind of games, and you could see in Zlatan’s face he was not happy with his substitute either.

Bojan (for Pedro, 76’): 5 He was better than Pedro, but I don’t think he touched the ball more than two or three times.

Busquets (for Xavi, 79’): 5 He was lucky to come in when Valencia were starting o get tired and Barça could play a bit more, but he did nothing particularly worth of admiration.

OK, I’ll admit I’m a bit disappointed (I was expecting a pretty, vibrant match, which I got, but also lots of goals and a Barça victory, which I most certainly didn’t), but I also have to admit the result was fair. Let’s just hope we shake off this funk by Wednesday, when we return to the European fields, this time in Russia.

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Category: Barcelona, La Liga, Review