La Liga Review: FC Barcelona 6, Getafe 1 – Just Your Morning Constitutional

By: Ade C. | February 10th, 2013

I hope you woke up early/stayed up late/comandeered a time-machine to watch this match, because -who knew?-, Barça like to dazzle by daylight. To a surprising 85,000+ attendance (many of them children, because it’s Carnaval weekend), Barça gave a display like we haven’t seen in a while.

''One large coffee to go, please.''

Like we pointed out in our match preview, Xavi’s injury forced Roura into Rotationland, from where he chose VV, Adriano, Piqué, Puyol, Alba, Song, Thiago, Iniesta, Villa, Messi and Alexis. Adriano in for Dani, Song -who rested during international break with some very convenient ‘discomfort’- in for the hard-working Busquets, Iniesta returning to midfield next to Thiago, and Villa given a start… it’s like a dream come true!

The dream-like atmosphere continued as, in the 5th minutes, Alexis scored. That’s right, I said “Alexis scored”. For the first time in La Liga since April 2012, Alexis put his shooting boots on instead of his falling down boots.

Look at that Iniesta assist! And what an excellent finish by Alexis (!); perhaps it is because, as one of our Twitter followers explained, gravity is at its weakest at midday. At last! Not that I don’t appreciate Alexis’ hard work, but the fact that we have an amazing primary goalscorer in Messi doesn’t mean that our secondary goalscorers can afford to bottle all their chances. Let’s hope that this goal is the boost of confidence that Alexis needed.

Life soon returned to normalcy as Messi scored on the 12th minute, because that’s the kind of thing he does.

Another stunning Iniesta pass, Thiago controls and sets it up for Messi to finish with none of his usual elegance.

The match flowed beautifully for the rest of the first half, helped along by a very nice ref who didn’t bother with the thousand and one stupid fouls that Liga referees usually give; Barça had well over 75% possession and even hit the goalpost once, as they seem determined to do every single match. There were chances a-plenty, but no more goals.

At half-time, Roura brought in the first sub: Dani Alves in for an Adriano who picked up a knock on his calf and asked to be left on the bench as “”"a precaution”"”.

The second half started with the same Barça control as the first, and soon we reaped the benefits, as David Villa scored the third:

Lovely assist by Jordi Alba, since squirrels are unusually good at sending the ball into the box and at the feet of their less squirrely teammates.

Getafe might as well not have made the trip to Barcelona, for all the time they got on the ball. It was all Barça, Barça, Barça, even when Puyol picked up a knock on his knee after some epic defending and asked to be subbed out for Mascherano.

And, speaking of subs, there was Tello, who scored within five minutes of stepping on the pitch, as he is wont to do:

Tiki-taka? Puh-leeze, nothing beats a good shot from outside the box!

It was sunny, Barça was 4-0, and… what? What do you mean “it was time for Barça to concede a stupid, preventable goal”?

Yes. Jordi Alba is responsible for this one, with a backwards header unworthy a squirrel as he, which perfectly set up Álvaro to ruin VV’s morning.

4-1 with less than ten minutes to go. Even with the defensive lapsus, you’d forgive a team for calling it a day. But not Barça. Oh no. Barça were determined to reward all their good players with a goal.

First was Iniesta, he of the magical passes, scooping up the rebound from Messi’s latest atttempt to phase the ball through three defenders:

And then Piqué, in injury time, got his reward from a day of consistently good defending, thanks to an exquisitely selfless Thiago:

6-1. Six goals, six different scorers, three valuable points. All in all, a productive morning!

A dazzling genius, and Messi.

VV: 8. Had one or two moments to be awake, and he was. Not much at fault for Álvaro’s goal.
Adriano: 8. He did well in his half. I just wish he wasn’t made of glass.
Dani Alves: 8. Some good crosses, decent defending when needed.
Piqué: 9. Very good, focused defending. And he scored!
Puyol: 8. His usual mixture of calm and ‘rawr!’ epic tackles. Let’s hope he’s not actually injured.
Jordi Alba: 7. He had a good match and an assist, but the silly mistake for the Getafe goal cost him points.
Song: 8. He started out shaky, with a couple of dangerous giveaways and a tendency to shy away and pass back instead of leading the team forwards, but he grew in confidence and had some good defensive moves in the second half.
Iniesta: 10. MOTM. Magic. Just magic.
Thiago: 9,5. Excellent show by Thiago, who gets cookie points for his two selfless assists.
Villa: 8. Some hard work, great skills, and a goal. And he wasn’t offside even once!
Messi: 7,5. Good goal, yes, but a couple of misses that probably had even Alexis shaking his head.
Alexis: 9. He scored! He scored!!! Also, some excellent hard work to open spaces for his teammates.
Tello gets a cookie for scoring immediately after being subbed on, after such a long time out of the squad, and Mascherano did well enough in the time he had.

It was s seriously excellent display, albeit against a rather woeful opponent who never really had a chance. Have some longer highlights in case you missed the actual match: