Match Report: Barcelona 0-0 Valencia

Looking at things from an outside perspective, what you see is this: most of the squad just returned from an exhausting international break, and directly went head to head with a top La Liga team, playing away without two of our star forwards. And we still managed a draw. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? But that's just the outer view.

Because peering into what actually happened during the match, it's really not that pretty. Valencia were rocking to their own tune last night, they came to win and hell, with the way they played, they deserved to. The fact that they didn't, from the outside, would make it look like Barca fought back with enough effort to pull through with a draw. But that was hardly the case.

Barca are lucky to have drawn. That's what we have to thank, luck and a man named Victor Valdes. With Valencia coming out strong from the start, shutting down our midfield and being generally awesome in both attack and defense, their lack of scoring is a wonder and ours is none at all.

Victor was incredible, hands down the man of the match. His saves were absolutely brilliant, and again, no matter what fumbles he may make all season, it can't be argued that he's a star of a keeper and the man meant to stand between this Barca's goalposts. We're leading the Liga by a single point, and that point was single-handedly salvaged by Vic.

This match reminded us somewhat of last season's memorable second-leg against Chelsea: Our team dynamic was muddled up by the opposition, who started the match on top and kept the pressure on our goal, with our keeper saving the day again and again as our attack fought for a last-breath goal. Difference is, on Stamford Bridge the goal came. On the Mestalla it didn't.

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Because our ideas sucked last night. Valencia were the more organized team, the team that knew what they were doing, while our players were seemingly sleepwalking up and down the pitch. They woke up a little as the second half kicked off, and tried to attack more, but there was no intelligence in the way they attacked. They were not passing when they supposed to and taking the option they weren't supposed to, simply lacking instinct in front of the goal. It was like, if the chance isn't clear as day right in front of them, they don't know what to do to score.

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So thank goodness that our keeper was fantabulous and Valencia had Mata on instead of the injured Villa, who would have rocked the hell out of a couple of chances that Mata wasted. We'll take this result and run with it, because it's so awesome that we were able to come out with it.

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Yeah, our players were dead after the international break, we get it. But still, they really could have done better. Hey Pep, what's up? Lineup could have been better too - like we wouldn't have started the hello-can't-you-see-I'm-dead-tired Messi, let alone in the center, when there is a such thing as Bojan. But what's done is done and we managed to swipe up a point; we're shaky on the top of the table but we're still on the top. Now let's hope Real Madrid drop some points in the next four fixtures.