LL Matchday 9: FC Barcelona vs Sevilla FC

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Kick-off time: 22nd October 2011 at 22:00 CET

We have a game tonight, so I created this thread. We have 18 players from A-team available, Cesc got a green light, players unavailable: Pique, Sanchez and Afellay. Cuenca from B-team, trained with a first team, he is available for team selection, but he will be cut from 18 players match squad. Sevilla is unbeaten in La Liga in this season, under Pep we won 5 games from 6 vs Sevilla in three seasons, one draw at Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán 1-1, season 2010-11. Sevilla is without Negredo and Perotti. Line-up predictions anyone?

Cesc Fàbregas has been declared fit by the Barça medical staff! (via @FCBarcelona_cat)
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‎~ Barca vs Sevilla at Home: 70 League matches ( 52 W, 11D, 7L ) Scored 193 goals & conceded 63

~ Xavi played 390 League Matches & 590 official matches for Barca in all Competition, 1 game away from Miguel (391 league matches).

~ Valdes hasn't allowed a goal in 517 min since the Valencia game.

‎~ Lionel Messi played 15 matches vs Sevilla scored 13 goals & provided 3 assists.

Barcelona line-up (official): Valdés, Alves, Mascherano, Abidal, Adriano, Keita, Xavi, Thiago, Iniesta, Messi, Villa.

Bench: Pinto, Maxwell, Fontàs, Busquets, Fàbregas, Cuenca, Pedro.

Puyol didn't make final match squad, he has some problems with pubis according to FCBarcelona_cat Twitter.

A surprising line up. I would expect Fabregas to have a go. Fontas and Pedro may be the others that might get a go. Good to see Thiago in the side! Good luck Barca! Starts in 20 minutes!

Props to Sevilla where they deserve it. While I don't agree with the tactics used they're obviously efficient, and they showed great discipline. Varas had the best game of his career, deserves an 11 for his performance today. Not only did he save a well taken penalty, he also was sublime the entire match.

The dropped points are not the end of the world. This league, like the previous ones, will come down to the clasicos. We're still unbeaten.

Mascherano had a great game. Our best player tonight.

Sanchez needs to get back soon, Villa is no longer a goal threat (while playing well elsewhere) and Pedro is still playing with low form. This causes an over-reliance on Messi.

Also, 5th tied game with Keita or so? No tied games without? The statistical correlation is too big to be ignored...

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Props to Sevilla where they deserve it. While I don't agree with the tactics used they're obviously efficient, and they showed great discipline. Varas had the best game of his career, deserves an 11 for his performance today. Not only did he save a well taken penalty, he also was sublime the entire match.

The dropped points are not the end of the world. This league, like the previous ones, will come down to the clasicos. We're still unbeaten.

Mascherano had a great game. Our best player tonight.

Sanchez needs to get back soon, Villa is no longer a goal threat (while playing well elsewhere) and Pedro is still playing with low form. This causes an over-reliance on Messi.

Also, 5th tied game with Keita or so? No tied games without? The statistical correlation is too big to be ignored...

I agree.

Keita was deployed as a DM( ) today....he shouldn't play that role. That said, I'm one of those who doesn't even want him to play in the first place. I think he's past it and he's actually not very physical(definitely not a yaya toure) he just runs alot. I think his time as any starter is up and we should get someone from the b team to replace him.

Villa, as you said, is starting to become ordinary. He has his moments of greatness but let's face it, he's getting old as well. Pedro has continued his pretty bad form. I am beginning to see pedro as a pretty ordinary player besides his finishing which is great. Let's face it. Messi had a bad game today. I saw many misplaced passes; definitely not like him.

Also, you should see our statistics when iniesta starts as a winger, we hardly ever win those. Andres belongs in the midfield.

FCBarcelona 0 - 0 Sevilla FT

2 points lost.. not the end of the world.. we are just 1pt away from madrid ( they will hla2 aw ba3den).. last 2 matches were had worst luck ever.. missed alot of easy chances, especially Messi.. it won't be the case in next matches hopefully.. Next match against Granada ( Away) we should recover!! Plus Messi needs some rest, he seems very tired !!

On the Positive side, We didn't conceeded for 6th consecutive match.. Valdes played 607 minutes without conceding a goal ( broke his previous record, 576minutes) !!

Visca el Barca <3
In your FACE HATERS! There is always a Classico, another Manita will do it for this season again lol!

It is good that i have not watched this game. Did Messi miss a penalty? WTF? I think he is not the most reliable player in our team when dealing with penalties

Man this night turns from bad to worst for me. I flied to Chicago, and the line at the custom was so big i missed my flight to Providence. I had 100 things to do there in morning and going to miss them.

Now i see we draw with Sevila??? Can someone please summarize the game? How did we play? Any thoughts? Thanks guys!

This was such a difficult game to watch.

I think that the key problem here is that our forward line is in disarray at the moment. Not saying for sure but it's possible that age has started to catch up with Villa and he is losing some of his lethal prowess in front of goal. Pedro is in very poor form - almost surely his worst phase since the start of the 2009-10 season. Alexis has been injured for the last two months or so. Afellay has a long term injury. The makeshift Adriano is not a good passer of the ball - count the number of moves that break down because he is not able to pass the ball as needed. So in this scenario the burden on Messi is just too much. If he fails to fire then we will find it difficult to get the desired result. All our midfield's class and domination of the ball can then come to nothing. We would hope that the imminent return of Alexis would give us some much needed benefit here.

A word about the Sevilla goalkeeper's performance. I think that this is one of the best goal keeping displays I have seen in the last few months. What I liked most about Javi Varas' performance was that he did not have to make many acrobatic jaw dropping saves. Instead his positioning in front of goal was near perfect. He read the game very well and was invariably positioned in the best possible manner any time a shot was struck towards his goal. One point that takes away from his performance is that Sevilla played a real parking the bus style and he had many defenders to help him out. Still it was a great performance. Is this another David De Gea in the making whereby an unknown shines in a medium sized club in Spain and then moves on to one of the elite clubs? Let's wait and watch.

Dont get why Villa is getting questions about age.

This season he has been very good actually, his start to the season has been superb in my book.

Goals come and go, his overall game has been quality.


All I will say about the game is, Keita playing and Iniesta as a "forward"...all I need to say really.

Agreed dani that Villa's general game has been good. All I am saying is he seems to have lost a small amount of his erstwhile prowess in front of goal. He doesn't really exude that confidence that he will finish a chance any time it comes his way.