It's funny because a lot of pundits even say Arsenal play Barcelona-like which I disagree completely. Both teams crave possession but Arsenal are far more counter-attacking and utilise wing-play way more often. I think closest in EPL to Barcelona are Swansea.

Immortal Babun wrote:The question, why was he bought again?

Because he is from the youth academy. I bet my life if he was from Nigeria he wouldn't even be scouted by Barcelona.

danyjr wrote:

Immortal Babun wrote:The question, why was he bought again?

Because he is from the youth academy. I bet my life if he was from Nigeria he wouldn't even be scouted by Barcelona.

What's freecat's opinion about him ( I don't lurk in your forum often)?

it might will be raining during the match,it has been all day in barca

he's too busy hating Alexis

Ganso wrote:it might will be raining during the match,it has been all day in barca

Meh, Barcelona always water the pitch before the match anyway. Saves them some time and water bills

XAVI WILL START!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Xavi has decided to take the risk and to play tonight. He'll be in the starting line-up.

danyjr wrote:

Ganso wrote:it might will be raining during the match,it has been all day in barca

Meh, Barcelona always water the pitch before the match anyway. Saves them some time and water bills

before and during the match are a big difference

Barcelona XI: 11 Barca Valdes, Alves, Pique, Masche, Puyol; Busi, Xavi, Cesc; Cuenca, Messi y Iniesta


Iniesta on the wing

Asexis riding the bench tonight, interesting to see if he or Tello comes on as super sub. Cuenca will be good for width hopefully.

9 players from La Masia start tonight.



AC Milan: Abbiati - Mexès, Nesta, Abate, Antonini - Seedorf, Nocerino, Ambrosini, Boateng - Ibrahimović, Robinho

Abate is back as expected, Robinho starts

Great to know that Xavi will likely start.

Sad to know that Iniesta's influence will be likely marginalized as I can understand from the predicted lineup.

FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU...

I only wanted Cuenca in at the expense of Cesc

Well, I always wanted Cuenca in I guess, I just didn't want fking Cesc to be playing. Iniesta on the wings? :vagi:

Cesc is legit against Milan mate.

That much has been proven.

Cuenca in means width. Also I'll take Cesc over Keita. It's not the best possible lineup, but we can win with it.

Also, are we sure Iniesta is playing on the wing? I think it's likelier that he'll play midfield and Cesc forward.

Not happy.

We have ONE recoginsed scorer on the pitch..the next best is Xavi.

Cuenca fine..but in tandem with Pedro/Alexis...not instead of.

I hope Pep hasnt doomed us here.

It seems like Messi has to pull shit out of his ass.

I imagine we will look something like with the ball.


---Mascherano------Pique-------Puyol---

-------------------Busquets----------

Dani Alves-----Xavi------------Iniesta---

--------Messi-----------Cesc--------------

---------------------------------------Cuenca

If Cuenca is on the right (in Alves way), Iniesta is on the left and Cesc is in midfield I will be majorly annoyed.

The Franchise wrote:Not happy.

We have ONE recoginsed scorer on the pitch..the next best is Xavi.

Cuenca fine..but in tandem with Pedro/Alexis...not instead of.

I hope Pep hasnt doomed us here.

It seems like Messi has to pull shit out of his ass here.

I feel for you for the first time

Not sure if Iniesta or Cesc will play in midfield tbh, we will see soon enough. Vamos Leo

Half-time comments:

Going to be plenty of Uefalona calls as usual, but its clear both penalties were legit. Again, we haven't finished our chances and should have scored in open play at least once. The goal was quite soft in that they left Nocerino free.

Everyone is playing quite well. Cuenca has done very well, Alves providing ample width on the other side. Cesc has been good too, and taken the pressure away from Messi. One thing I'm not happy about is we've misplaced a lot of passes and need to fix that.

Pique has been quite ordinary and isn't inspiring confidence right now. Neither is Puyol really. Mascherano's tackles have been brilliant, but I don't want him coming too far out and leaving space...

Mascherano maybe on fault for playing Nocerino onside but my god, this guy becomes better and better every match!

Hope Piqué's injury isn't too serious. He was starting to play ok these last couple of weeks.

To the Semi's..made to sweat for it too.....

Both obvious pens, dont feel the need to discuss that.

Glad we had width on both sides and that helped our game, we attacked when the space appeared and were much better than the 1st leg.

It wasnt a 3-1 game, Milan were better than that....Ibra showed exactly what he capable of, but in the end, we did just enough.

On to Chelsea probably.

fabregas

Played pretty well.

Mascherano if he wasn't responsible for that one goal...would have been man of the match for me. Absolutely flawless other than that.

Made much better use of width and took advantage of (most) of the chances we got.

Deserved to win and did. I'm a happy man

The Franchise wrote:Not happy.

We have ONE recoginsed scorer on the pitch..the next best is Xavi.

Cuenca fine..but in tandem with Pedro/Alexis...not instead of.

I hope Pep hasnt doomed us here.

It seems like Messi has to pull shit out of his ass.

I imagine we will look something like with the ball.


---Mascherano------Pique-------Puyol---

-------------------Busquets----------

Dani Alves-----Xavi------------Iniesta---

--------Messi-----------Cesc--------------

---------------------------------------Cuenca

If Cuenca is on the right (in Alves way), Iniesta is on the left and Cesc is in midfield I will be majorly annoyed.

Spot on dani. Today it was demonstrated that with the same lineup, different tactics can mean a completely different team. Iniesta in midfield and Cuenca on the left was crucial. Later when Cuenca was brought to the right Iniesta's influence still didn't become marginal unlike what I had feared. Adriano coming on helped to provide more width. Anyway I am relieved now and can go to sleep peacefully.

I think everyone did well.

Mascherano was at fault for the goal and for the next 2 minutes was too eager and ended up sliding all over the place.

Pique had a tough time up against Ibra, but he is the best striker in the world for me and of course he will have difficulties.

A few misplaced passes here and there, Iniesta had a quite first half. But those things aside everyone did well and more importantly, everyone (Messi too) put in one heck of a shift.

This was a scenario that got repeated times and times again over this match: Messi gets 3 defenders surrounding him, 2 of them on his left foot alone - on a constant basis! I believe Barcelona's reliance on Messi can become a problem if not taken care of soon. The manager needs to make others take responsibility, be bold, try to score. It is becoming a little predictable.

Barcelona miss someone like Eto'o in these matches.

I was nervous as f*ck until we scored that 3-1. Wow, deserved win. Some things worth mentioning:
* Fàbregas played nicely, good move from Pep putting him in the line-up.
* Cuenca was great in the first half but almost invisible most of the second half. What happened there? Was it mostly due to him changing sides?
* Mascherano. _O_ I forgive his mistake. Who couldn't under these circumstances. Epic tackling from the master once again.
* Why the *bleep* did we get to see Keita play? Why didn't Pep just change Xavi for Tello or Alexis? He could've told Cesc to drop back to the midfield and we'd be great.

Although Mascherano was at fault for the goal was was great once again, the yellow card he got was a clean tackle imo.

Fabregas was great. Messi was frustrated against their tight defense, couldn't find many final passes.