Cultural Leonesa 0, Barça 2, a.k.a. “Pedrito to the rescue (again)!”

By: Ade C. | October 29th, 2009

It probably wasn’t one of Barça’s most thrilling matches, but then again, when you field a team of youngsters against a third division team, you can’t expect an earth-shattering performance, can you? (well, yes, you could expect it, but you shouldn’t)

With Real Madrid’s precedent of losing 4-0 to a Segunda B team the day before, a few of us were slightly worried we’d see a similar upset happen at the Reino de León, especially since Pep had given a day off to most of our match-changing players. But once we shook off the shivers and reminded ourselves that this is the Copa del Rey, a competition apparently designed to give the youth-team kids something to look forward to, confidence slowly returned.

It was the perfect opportunity for Pep to play with the puppies... erm, I meant, try the young players…

Lord Pep’s Starting XI was:

———————Pinto———————–
Jeffren—Márquez—Chygrynskiy—Maxwell
——————-Busquets———————
—————-Touré—-Keita——————–
———–Pedrito—Bojan—Assulin————–

Look at it. Notice something odd? Something different from my proposed line-up? Look again. Yes. You see it, don’t you?

What the Hell was Jeffren, a striker who is at his best when coming in from the left, doing playing right-back?! The only possible answer is to intone what has become my mantra since last season, “Pep moves in mysterious ways”. This strange move led to puppy-like Gai Assulin to make his official debut with the first team, and forced Busi to move into Yaya’s usual place, leaving our Tower of Strength in position to help Jeffren.

Cultural played Saizar, Cervero, Segovia, Salva, Gorka García, Yahve, Pereira, Chema Mato, Ferran, Chema and Jito, which is pretty close to what their starting eleven would have been any normal weekend.

The match started with Cultural playing well, playing strong, and having apparently taken the Alcorcón spirit well to heart. Luckily, Yaya Touré was there to get in the way of whatever white-shirted player thought he could just take the ball and run with it, and Rafa and Dima looked strangely comfortable playing side-by-side. Jeffren was trying, I’ll give him that, and running, and doing his best to impersonate Dani Alves (bitchfacing and tackling his way to a yellow), but he was woefully out of his depth and most of the danger that Cultural managed to create in the first half came from his side.

On the left, however, the Maxwell-Keita-Gai connection was working pretty well, and young Gai Assulin had a real show of class near the 12th minute, when he turned and twisted in the face of two Cultural defenders, only for his shot to go wide. In fact, I’d say he was the most active of our strikers, if not the most accurate. Bojan was trying a bit too hard to be Messi (which he isn’t) and Pedrito… well, Pedrito was there, but Jeffren and Yaya had enough problems with Chema and Jito to think about getting the ball to him.

There weren’t many shots on goal, from either side. Jito tested the magical powers of Pinto’s Braided Ponytail ™, but our second goalie answered all challenges nicely (even if he did take a few unnecessary risks from time to time), and with both Bojan and Pedrito running into the Cultural defenders all the time, Keita and Yaya both tried shots that went well wide.

But we wouldn’t be Barça if we couldn’t score even when the match isn’t all going our way! Forty minutes into the match, when Cultural seemed resigned to take the goalless draw to the half-time, and Touré and Busi had traded places for a while, Bojan took the ball into the penalty box and gave it to Pedrito before being mowed down by, I think, Segovia. Pedrito took the gift and flicked it past the goalkeeper with a deliciously cold-blooded show of finishing, and just like that, it was 0-1.

Does this look familiar? Pedrito has now scored in all five of the competitions Barça has played so far this season.

Heartened by the goal, I thought Barça would come out guns blazing to sentence the match early in the second half, but it was Cultural who cranked up the pressure. “Come on, these bastards don’t have mortgages!” was the immortal rallying shout of one of the Cultural players.

A bit concerned, or whatever passes for that emotion behind Pep’s unfathomable eyes and delicious gray suit, our manager finally did what we had been hoping he would do from the beginning, albeit in a more complicated way. Gai Assulin came out and Abidal came in. Thus, Maxwell moved to play RB, Abidal took Maxwell’s place, and Jeffren was returned to his rightful place.

And, damn it, did this work! Not ten minutes after the change, Jeffren lobbed a delicious assistance to Pedrito, who once again proved that he has very few things left to learn when it comes to finishing. 0-2 and it felt fine.

The match was broken by now. Bojan tried to pick a fight with the referee (who had been lenient all throughout the match) and Cultural made all their three changes at once, to try and get a goal in that would allow them to dream of a remontada at the Camp Nou. Pep was feeling benevolent and allowed another two youngsters to make their official debut: Jonathan Dos Santos came in for Keita, and five minutes later, Jonathan Soriano (the former Espanyol player who fought us in last season’s Copa del Rey derby) came in for Jeffren, who was suffering from his prolonged Dani Alves impersonation earlier.

Cultural still had a chance on goal, and we had more than one, but neither Jito, nor Bojan or Soriano managed to aim well, and the match ended with a comfortable 0-2 in our favour (I said it was going to end 0-3… not bad, even if I say so myself!).

“Stand back, puny mortals!” (no Cultural players were harmed during the playing of this match)

Now, for my unavoidably subjective grading!

Pinto: 8 Everything he had to do, he did it, and his braided ponytail didn’t suffer from it, though he took a couple of unnecessary risks.

Jeffren: 7,5 He is not a good right-back, but then again, there’s no reason why he should be; still, he did what he could, and later showed his best qualities when playing as a striker.

Rafa: 7 Solid and dependable, if not as fast as he used to be; the man wearing the captain’s armband last night is getting back in form.

Chygrynskiy: 6,5 Slipped up a couple of times, thankfully with no consequences, but he played well and got into the groove.

Maxwell: 7,5 Good job both as a LB and a RB; when he could play with Keita, it was a joy to see. I’d consider him for Dani’s position for as long as our other Brazilian is out.

Busquets: 6,5 Had a few of his “wobbly” moments, made a couple of unnecessary fouls, but he held his position well and helped the Yaya.

Touré: 8 Is my adoration of this man showing? Alright, so he missed a shot that should have been a goal, but he was always there to stop Cultural’s counterattacks and give Jeffren a hand.

Keita: 7,5 Not as unabashedly wonderful as he was on Sunday, but much more than good enough.

Gai Assulin: 7 Didn’t score, but it was not for lack of trying; he was active, he did everything he could to impress Pep, and I’d like to see him again.

Bojan: 5 His nerves were showing. He should be able to play this kind of matches without giving into the pressure; this said, he responded well to being kicked about and gave Pedrito the first goal.

Pedrito: 8,5 Man of the Match, if only because of the two goals; fantastic finishing and, once the right flank started working again, he had several good passes.

Abidal (for Gai, 56’): 7 Good match, even if he didn’t have much to do; he works very nicely along with Keita.

Dos Santos (for Keita, 80’): 6 He came in late and gave Cultural players more space than he should have, but he held his own well, all things considered.

Soriano (for Jeffren, 84’): 5,5 Did a bit of running around, missed a shot that he should have netted, but it was alright for his debut match.

So, we won and in a fortnight, Cultural y Deportiva Leonesa will visit the Camp Nou, with nothing to lose and a hell of a lot to win, but those two goals and our young players should be enough to let us slide further into the Copa del Rey. I’m good. Are you?