Out of the Rabbit Hole: Barcelona takes command of La Liga

By: Isaiah | April 15th, 2007

There is no substitute for luck.

Now the league is ours to lose again as an own goal from Fernando Navarro in the last minute of regulation gave us a 1-0 home win over Mallorca. It was a handy bit of luck for the blaugrana, but they did dominate possession and the majority of the chances. Couple with Sevilla’s loss to Valencia, that puts Barcelona 4 points clear at the top with 8 games remaining.

Sport makes no bones about it all coming down to luck (Spanish; the translation of the title is “Luck of the Champion), which is hardly overstating the situation. Besides the last minute own goal, Jonas missed a penalty in the first half after being hauled down by Valdés in the box; the keeper made the stop, which at least makes up for putting us all through the ringer for a minute. A quick description of the own goal, to make the title of this post make any sense: Xavi floated in a cross off a freekick, Marquez headed it against a defender and the ball fell kindly to “El Conejo” (the Rabbit) Saviola, who banged the ball off the post and it ricocheted in off of Navarro.

Still, the chances were mainly for Barcelona, who looked impressive at the beginning of the second half when, despite Ronaldinho’s absence, they were putting together series after series of passing moves. The only gripe that can be said is that they weren’t precise enough on the final pass. Messi and Deco were strong throughout the game on through the middle and along the right wing, but when Giuly was removed in favor of Saviola, Eto’o was unable to fill Ludovic’s role as a winger.

A major plus of the game was, from what I saw (which was the whole second half, but none of the first), that Barcelona’s defense held strong and didn’t allow Mallorca very many opportunities. There was one clear chance, which Ibagaza blew with a silly shot when he should have passed, but other than that they were unphased by anything Mallorca threw at them. Thuram looked pretty good and Márquez was able to fill in when Xavi swapped out with Thuram. Sport’s live commentary on the match called Puyol “omnipresent” which is a pretty good way of describing Carles’ night. That Mallorca played virtually without a striker didn’t hurt matters for Barcelona.

Just something funny: there was a moment when the gigantic Ballesteros had the ball and was being harassed by the tiny Iniesta. Hilarious.