This is a victory that marks history, as the current squad have thus become the first Barcelona side to win their first four Liga matches in over a decade. And it doesn’t look like the winning streak will be ending anytime soon, with the way the team was looking last night.With possession of around seventy-three percent, Barca were totally dominating the match, especially for the first half. There were a few loose balls and a couple of off passes, but for the most part the attack was lively and chances were great.
It didn’t take long for Zlatan Ibrahimovic to find the net, by way of his head – how awesome is it to be having such a tall striker on the team? Zla really gives a new, unexpected flavor to Barca’s attack, and we’re loving it. Despite a rough preseason start, he’s managed to score in every single Liga match thus far, and we foresee many more goals to come from him, and not just in the Liga.
Directly after scoring, Zlatan had a hell of another chance but his ground ball rolled past the advanced keeper and bounced off the bottom the post, painful inches from going in. Missing that was unfortunate, but Barca’s next goal came in mere minutes after that, when Leo Messi matched Ibra’s goal-count with his own Liga fourth; from a crazy shot that we’re sure nobody, least of all the keeper, had been expecting. While other players will go about scoring off obvious chances, Messi will always surprise you and create a goal out of nowhere. And you’ve gotta love that about him.
The goals were coming in quick succession, as the second was almost immediately followed up with a third, this time courtesy of none other than Gerard Pique. It’s always ridiculously awesome when centerbacks grab the odd goal, and Geri seems to have something of a knack for it. Zlatan set it up for him with a frenzy of dribbling past the frantic opposition defenders in the confusion after a corner, before passing brilliantly to Pique who was off to the side just waiting for the ball – in the perfect position to score and he did so, with ease.
Three great goals in the space of seven minutes, things were looking great – but it was upsetting to see all our goal-scorers getting banged up. Towards the start of the match Pique took a boot to the head after a weird sliding tackle, getting him pretty bad as the blood began to stream down his hair and neck. Thankfully it wasn’t too serious, as he simply stepped off the pitch and got his head watered down and wrapped up, before returning to play and scoring his goal.
Messi, who was looking particularly pale last night, also got roughed up when he went down after a tackle and didn’t look like he’d be able to get up and resume; but after a little hassle with the medics he seemed okay after all, and continued until Pep decided to sub him off.
The biggest scare though was Zlatan, who took a blow to the ankle just after the half and looked to be worse off than Leo had been. The medics rushed to his aid ready to tow him off on a stretcher, while Pep gestured frantically from the sidelines to know if his star would have to be substituted; but eventually Zla got up and decided to continue. Pep wasn’t taking any chances though, and minutes later took him off for Pedro.
Pique also came off for Rafael Marquez later in the second half, and Pep was preparing a third substitution with Andres Iniesta all lined up to take to the field in place of Messi; but not before Leo found the net again. With the ball at his feet, he took off dribbling past a row of defenders then finally shot mid-run, hitting the top corner of the goal for his second that night and Barca’s fourth. He was unbelievably incredible last night, man of the match for sure, and now boasts a spectacular five goals in four Liga matches.
As a final note, we can’t help but feel that Iniesta hasn’t yet completely found his touch since returning from injury, but he’s undoubtedly getting there… and hopefully Rafael Marquez will too. He was slow on the defense last night, it seemed that when Pique came off spaces began to open up for Racing to attack, thus resulting in them grabbing a lonely goal and ruining our clean sheet; a goal Rafa really could have done something about. But he and Andres should both bounce back in time, after all they are fresh from injury and neither have had many minutes since returning, not yet having started a single match. In any case, we were left grinning at the final whistle when Rafa pulled off his shirt, even though he only played for like, thirty minutes – nothing like a shirtless footballer to put a smile on our face.
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