Sevilla - FC Barcelona | La Liga Matchday 23 | Feb 9th, 2013

Sevilla.

LMAO

Guys please say you are ashamed to be 3-1 up

Funniest 3-1 I've ever seen.

The least deserving 3-1 we got in a while.

Crapregas to come on and mess the lead up.

Sevilla.

DAT TIKI TAKA.

Umad Sevilla?

I have nothing to say about this game

Neymar pls come back

Piqué and Montoya were woeful. Schoolboy errors from the back four. Bartra also made trademark mistakes (overcommitting to retrieve the ball) but overall played a much better match than his supposedly more experienced partner in defence.

Song barely put a foot wrong when in possession but without the ball he's clueless as to where to position himself, when to press, when to mark.

Pedro played well. Iniesta had a good match finally.

Messi was very good once he found his rhythm. Worked hard and scored two wonderful goals.

Worst Pique game of the season? I think so. How many times did we see him just stand in front of a Sevilla player and not even go for the tackle, or let a player make a run behind him, or let a much shorter player than him get a header instead of him? Where is the Pique that played against Atletico?

Montoya was awful as well, but that was to be expected based on recent performances. Adriano and Bartra were perfectly average but shined well ahead of their defensive teammates by comparison. As Dani said in the chat, Iniesta had to drop in to the box and solve defensive situations for them. Iniesta

Alexis, in spite of scoring and getting an assist, was ridiculously wasteful as well. Messi's walking is still there, clearly thinking "don't put an effort today or I might get injured for the WC" the entire 90 minutes.

Iniesta and Valdes were our best players tonight. Everyone else though...

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Messi's walking is still there, clearly thinking "don't put an effort today or I might get injured for the WC" the entire 90 minutes.

No hurry, step by step. This match he ran more than previous 3 matches combined.  

But he should be careful with pressing, it is rumoured common knowledge that running can cause injuries

that only means he didn't run at all in the previous 3 matches

BarrileteCosmico wrote:that only means he didn't run at all in the previous 3 matches

I like what I see...I was about to give up hope in Messi but this match he proved me wrong. Yes he is no Pedro or Alexis in terms of work rate but that's Messi.

Messi had a much better game compare to last two match.

Xavi: "Messi? He's always decisive. People only tend to look at goals. Today he scored, but he also worked very hard, put pressure..."

I remember last year Mourinho made a comment regarding Cristiano (Granada match I think, where Madrid played with 10 men from early on); he said something along the lines of "for me this was Cristiano's best match because even though he didn't score, he worked hard and I'd never seen him tired like this after a match".

I personally felt the same about Messi today. I want him to be mentally ready to give his all for Argentine come summer.

Btw are we playing R. Soc in 3 days or in March? ESPN has 2 different dates for the cup semifinal

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Btw are we playing R. Soc in 3 days or in March? ESPN has 2 different dates for the cup semifinal

Return leg of the Cup semi-final is this week. La Liga game is after first leg against City (22nd February).

It's hard to say someone didn't have a better game compared to the last two when he had 2 goals and an assist (albeit to someone offside), but I don't think Messi was much better.

More decisive, yes. Better in general play? Probably worse, until the last 20 minutes or so. I'd say for 60 minutes of that game what Messi did was lose the ball, walk around, and misplace passes. Until his first goal he was absolutely awful.

Messi was the perfect symbol for Barca today. Played like crap for the most part, but decisive enough to somehow get a goddamn 4-1 win.

Just so people can't claim I'm just picking on Messi, Pique and Montoya were terrible, agreed with BC. Bartra and Adriano better, but neither of them gave good performances either. We could have gave up around 6 goals, and SHOULD have gave up probably 3 or 4 with even halfway decent finishing from Sevilla. Xavi was average at best, I can agree Song was decent in possession but he was bad when not in possession and is lucky he didn't get sent off. I thought Iniesta had a good game, but nothing very noteworthy.

Pedro and Alexis were lively and did what they could defensively. Contributed in offense but I don't think either were noteworthy either. Agreed Alexis was very wasteful.

Valdes MOTM for me, but no one really deserves it.

I remember last year Mourinho made a comment regarding Cristiano (Granada match I think, where Madrid played with 10 men from early on); he said something along the lines of "for me this was Cristiano's best match because even though he didn't score, he worked hard and I'd never seen him tired like this after a match".

I personally felt the same about Messi today. I want him to be mentally ready to give his all for Argentine come summer.

I can agree a good thing about Messi today was that he worked harder than he had previously, off the ball he certainly improved, even though I still think he can work harder and should. On the ball I didn't see improvement, if anything I thought he was worse. Perhaps that's partially due to the pitch, who knows.

Messi gets caught on the ball so often, its cringe worthy to watch and at times I had a sense of shame. If we were playing well aside from him it would be been frustration but he wasnt alone in dismal play.

I wont comment further on him or others, as everyone has already said it all.

What I say is, that game was horrible. We could of easily been out of it inside the first 30 minutes.

As I said on chat, its a sad and troubling time when our 2 forwards are better defensive players than the fullbacks and all 3 midfielders. I dont think any other club can claim this and it isnt something to be proud of.

Also think Tata dodged a big bullet here. He made zero changes, both in terms of tactics or subs, to the way in which we was getting owned out there.

Great result, LEADERS again, move on...

Best 3 players in the game:
Messi, Iniesta and Valdes.

Xavi was good, Song played better than I've expected.

The Franchise wrote:

What I say is, that game was horrible. We could of easily been out of it inside the first 30 minutes.

As I said on chat, its a sad and troubling time when our 2 forwards are better defensive players than the fullbacks and all 3 midfielders. I dont think any other club can claim this and it isnt something to be proud of.

Also think Tata dodged a big bullet here. He made zero changes, both in terms of tactics or subs, to the way in which we was getting owned out there.

All Sevilla chances were down to individual mistakes from the backline. And amateurish ones at that. For the first goal Barca had what? 9 players around their own box? Yet Pique manages to suck in a nutmeg and a deflected shot goes in. I don't see how this can be blamed on tactics / lack of tactical changes or the midfield not defending enough. If Barca were getting raped on the counter leaving spaces behind - okay, blame the tactics. But that didn't happen. It was simply Pique being a scrub, something that isn't getting highlighted often enough.

Here are the extended highlights in HD:



Pique owned in 0:55.
Pique giving away a free header in 1:35.
Pique owned like a schoolboy again in 2:30 (simply embarrassing ).

Pique alone (and no one else, not the tactics, not the midfield) conceded 3 golden opportunities. Add to that Montoya's f*ckup and it's 4, almost all of Sevilla's best chances.

Xaviesta is the savest midfield in the world. They rarely lose the ball, they stay with their markers 99 out of 100 times, they are tactically beyond intelligent how to close passing angles etc. and they put in a shift (as much as possible given their physical deficiencies). You can't ask for more cover from a midfield unless you play a double pivot consisting of physical defensive midfielders like Schweini and Martinez.

My hope is that Tata somehow flukes the treble with Messi, Iniesta and Neymar playing in godmode to win games 3-2, 4-2 etc. So he gains enough respect to buy his own players AND bench (better sell) idiots like Pique. The Oleguer of the Pep era who is here because he is Catalan and nothing else. No wonder Pep wanted him sold.

Montoya is garbage. Glad to know we gave him an extension; our future is in good hands.....

Lets swap Alberto Moreno for Alba btw

I disagree that messi didn't run enough, IMO in this game and last one he found the healthy middle ground. Running much more would mean to be like the beginning of the season and he would get injured.

Man of the match: Alexis hump.

Xavi was quite poor too, as well as pique and Montoya.