Barcelona - Wisła Kraków: CL Qualifier, Leg 1, Wednedsay 3:45pm EST

By: Isaiah | August 12th, 2008

Official competition is back! I’m so excited by this prospect that I can hardly contain myself within the margins of this blog. But, for your sake, dear readers, I shall try. A calm, steady preview is what we need to get this season underway correctly — along with a smashing victory over Wisła Kraków, of course.

So, to the game, to the lineups, to all that good stuff that we’ve taken such a long break from:

It’s the Champions League 3rd Round Qualifier two-legged affair, with the winner going to the group stage. The first leg is at the Camp Nou, the second leg at Wisła Kraków’s terribly original Wisła Stadium (I think it’s technically called the Stadion Wisły — thanks Wikipedia!). From a 98,000-seater to a 20,000-seater with stands on only 3 sides…should be a pretty intense change, though I don’t doubt the Poles will do their part to make it a loud and crazy atmosphere.

Wisła, founded in 1906, is one of the most successful Polish teams of all time, though they wereranked 133rd in the world at the end of the year by Bert Kassies. They’ve won the Polish league 11 times (3rd overall), including last year, and have the most top 3 finishes of all time (32). The farthest they’ve made it in the CL is the quarterfinal in 1979 when it was the European Cup, but they haven’t been slouches in reaching where they are right now. Back in 2001, Wisła faced off against a giant of the European footballing community in the third qualifying stage. The first leg, in Kraków, ended 3-4 to the visitors; the second leg ended 1-0 to FC Barcelona in the Camp Nou. So there’s some history there

They qualified by beating Beitar Jerusalem 6-2 on aggregate (1-2, 5-0), so they’re certainly not offensive slouches. Their leading scorer for the team is Paweł Brożek, who scored Wisła’s only goal at Beitar thanks to one of the many Israeli defensive breakdowns. Brożek is 25 and, according to Wikipedia, has scored 43 goals in 111 league games (a scoring 0.387 goals per game). He also scored Wisła’s third goal in the 5-0 thrashing (Check out the youtube video). Please note Rafał Boguski (number 9)’s great distribution from midfield on Brożek’s goal.

But what impressed me most was that 4 different players scored the other 4 goals (Argentine Mauro Cantoro with a pretty nice freekick, Brazilian Cleber with a penalty after a fairly terrible call, Costa Rican Junior Diaz after some gritty play in the box, and finally another Polish forward, Andrzej Niedzielan, cleaning up the final, damning bit of sloppy Israeli defensive work. So their midfielders and defenders can score, which could cause Barcelona some problems if they’re not on top of their defensive play (I’m looking at you Abidal).

Midfielder Piotr Brożek (Paweł’s twin brother) and defender Cleber were both injured this weekend during Wisła’s league game in Poland, but Cleber is expected to play. Piotr is doubtful, but could still play while Polish international defender Arkadiusz Głowacki is out with a knee injury sustained against Beitar.

Now, to Barcelona, to the new squad facing its first official game. Pep Guardiola has his work cut out for him in selecting the proper starting 11, but he’s definitely not short of talent. Alves will definitely make his official debut, that’s for sure, but what of Keita, Hleb, Pique, and Caceres?

Here is the starting lineup I’d like to see out there:
Valdes, Alves, Marquez, Puyol, Abidal, Yaya, Xavi, Iniesta, Henry, Eto’o, Hleb

I fully understand the argument for a midfield where Iniesta is replaced by Keita, but I’ll argue against it at this point because of continuity: Guardiola hasn’t really experimented with this lineup for all that much time and he knows that the above lineup will create scoring opportunities. Naturally he knows more about Wisła’s approach than I do, having had the opportunity to study film, so perhaps he’ll see a midfield that he’d like to shut down with two bruisers rather than forcing Xavi to backtrack more, like he had to do last year. Against the Red Bulls (the last preseason game), Guardiola played the started lineup I suggested, except with Keita instead of Yaya. If that’s his preferred starting 11, my cult of personality is going to have to have a word with Pep. It is always possible to bring on Keita for Iniesta, but bring on Iniesta for Keita might destabilize things in midfield a bit more. And make no mistake, kids, this is a must-win for us.

Another thing I understand is starting Caceres, but I think that Marquez has performed very well in the preseason, while Caceres has failed to truly find his legs (and yeah, if you start off with Valdes, Alves, and Caceres, you’d have 3 players whose names end in -es, which floats my boat, but not necessarily Barcelona’s). It’s understandable that Caceres has not fully fit in, as a defense is usually the last part to gel — this will be especially true because of Puyol’s absence from the early preseason because of his layoff after the Euros. So expect to see Marquez and Puyol anchoring that back line with Alves and Abidal bombing up the wings. Pique isn’t quite ready for a starting spot just yet — he’s one for the future, to be honest, not the immediate present.

While I don’t think Henry is cut out for the left winger role, it is really the only option for right now unless Iniesta is charged with covering more ground than he usually is forced to do. He’s a silent assassin, really doing all the little things that go generally unnoticed, so having him back there doing his thing while Henry pulls a couple of defenders out of the middle to free up space for Eto’o might be more beneficial than having Henry push into the middle while Iniesta runs around him on the wing. Iniesta is more fluid in the center of the field, so keeping him there or at least giving him access to that portion of the field makes more sense to me than scrunching 3 players together during attacks (Henry, Iniesta, and Abidal).

Bojan should come off the bench and do pretty well, Keita too, but I don’t know who that 3rd sub is these days. Sylvinho for Abidal seems probable, but he’s an attacking threat who doesn’t really play defense, so it depends on the score.

Eto’o bags a brace, kids. It’s just how he is. I think we win 3-0 thanks to some shutdown, get out of my house work by Yaya “The Iron Tower” Toure and a nice strike from Bojan off the bench.

Here are some sites where you should be able to catch the game:
FC Barcelona’s official site: offers BarcaTV, but it’s a pay site. Also has free streaming radio, which is probably how I’ll be tuning in.
UEFA’s official site: offers pay-per-view Champions League all year long.
Roja Directa
LiveFooty
If anyone has any other links, please let me know.