Beautiful Barcelona the best team in Europe
Roar Guru
By Alan Nicolea, 10 Apr 2009 Alan Nicolea is a Roar Guru
When Barcelona’s line-up of superstars perform, like they did against Bayern Munich yesterday morning, they become arguably the most difficult side in Europe to stop, no matter who plays them.
Against German giants Bayern Munich at the Nou Camp, Barcelona had one of those days of dominance that makes them arguably the best team to watch in the Champions League.
The inspiration of Lionel Messi, the skill of Thierry Henry, and the potency of Samuel Eto’o, was always going to be too much against a Bayern Munich side who now must overcome a 4-0 deficit at home next week if they are any chance of qualifying for the Champions League semi-finals.
From the opening minutes of the first half, Barcelona was in glorious touch, with Messi opening the scoring in just the ninth minute of the game with a delicate finish.
Messi then turned provider for Eto’o, courtesy of a wonderful through ball that the Cameroon striker finished with aplomb.
Henry scored Barcelona’s third goal to effectively seal the result against a hapless Munich team that was quietly confident of pulling off the upset.
Messi eventually scored his second goal to make it 4-0 and leave Barcelona an inch away from a semi-final showdown against either Chelsea or Liverpool.
Despite the apparent lack in intensity during the secone half, Barcelona still came up with numerous chances to add to the summit of goals they scored in the first half.
An individual effort from Messi was well saved by Bayern goalkeeper Hans Jörg Butt – the stop at least keeping Bayern on life support as they return to Germany for next week’s second leg against the Catalan giants.
But the ominous form of Barcelona duo Messi, Henry and Eto’o should see Europe’s most fluent team head into the semi-finals full of confidence.
On their day, Barcelona are a sure bet to go all the way.
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David V. said | April 10th 2009 @ 1:21am | Report comment
An Arsenal v Barcelona final is to be hoped for!
dasilva said | April 10th 2009 @ 1:44am | Report comment
Barcelona certainly were beautiful and I loved the 4th goal.
If they play Chelsea in the semi-final I’ll kind of be divided.
Barcelona is my favorite club team that doesn’t have an Australian player in it due to their style of football they play and also due to the one and only Leo Messi (best player in the world).
Chelsea has Guus Hiddink who I’ve supported every team he coach after the world cup. He’s like an adopted Australian legend and would like to see him win the Champions League for the second time and confirm as one of the best coaches in the world.
dasilva said | April 10th 2009 @ 1:46am | Report comment
By the way, wasn’t the 4th goal Henry and the 3rd Goal Messi?
The henry goal was great team work
Colin N said | April 10th 2009 @ 3:50am | Report comment
Agreed Barcelona were awesome. Although, Messi didn’t do those continual jinking runs like we know he can, he showed deft touches that showcased his alround footballing ability. Already he’s my bet for the footballer of the year. However, we should not forget that Bayern were awful. Even if you have good attacking ability in your side, you don’t allow a team of Barcelona’s brilliance that much time and space. Assuming Chelsea go through, they won’t allow Barcelona that much space. Hiddink got it tactically spot on last night. But I must query Benitez for saying he was surprised that Gerrard was man-marked, how naive is that?
Alan Nicolea said | April 10th 2009 @ 9:05am | Report comment
Da Silva
Yes, you are right. Sorry about that.
Sam said | April 10th 2009 @ 9:28am | Report comment
Liverpool and Man Utd will go out in the next round. People have to stop underestimating Porto.
My tip to win it is Chelsea. They have an extra gear to go up to I believe. Barcelona can play beautiful football, but won’t be allowed to when they come across a better team than Bayern.
Dave said | April 10th 2009 @ 9:39am | Report comment
Errr just checking and yes Man Utd are the Champions of Europe who beat Barca in the semi on the way to that title and kept them scoreless in 2 games…in fact Man Utd are Champions of the World and Championsof the most competitive (highest standard…just check how many EPL teams in the 1/4 finals of ECL) league in the world. So at this stage Man Utd are the best team in World (which includes Europe!!). On their day with a full line up Utd would beat any team on the planet. Barca defeated a dreadfully out of form Bayern 4-0 but Wolfsburg beat them 5-1!!
BTW No excuses for Utds 2-2 home result but worth a mention that they had played Aston Villa only 48 hours earlier with all the effort and emotion attached to that.
Utd to play Chelsea in the final again!
Papa Smurf said | April 10th 2009 @ 9:48am | Report comment
Barcelona were irresistible and so were Chelsea , it was football played on another planet… I hope it will be a Chelsea Barcelona Final … A promoters dream.. (not sure if the draw will workout that way)…
~~~~~~~
KB
Ignatius said | April 10th 2009 @ 5:00pm | Report comment
Dave,
You are not giving Barcelona the credit they deserve. The last time I saw Barcelona vs Man Utd. for me was clear that Barcelona played better. Man. United parked the bus in front of the goal (something that you expect to do a small team not a huge team like Man Utd.) and won by a goal scored in one of the few chances they had, and if you remember at that time Barcelona was far from playing their best football.
Barcelona just beat without sweating the team that in the previous round won by 12 – 1 on aggregate. Ok , they were missing important players but still they did well enough to have an almost secured spot in the next round while for example Manchester United looks like saying good bye to the competition if they don’t improve a lot their game in the next match against Porto.
About the EPL being the most competitive league in the world is arguable. Because the first 4 teams are really strong doesn’t means that the rest of the league is. How many different teams than the usual top 4 (take out Liverpool) have won the league in the last 15 years?
I really like to watch the EPL, it’s frenetic, fun, the most “tv friendly” competition but again, how many teams in the league can compete with this 4 financial powers? Espanyol who is fighting relegation beated Barcelona last time. That speaks of competitiveness.
Hope this makes some sense and sorry for my english.
Ignatius said | April 10th 2009 @ 5:15pm | Report comment
BTW,
some results of the the UEFA cup involving english teams:
Thursday, 09 April 2009 – Hamburg 3 – 1 Manchester City
Thursday, 19 March 2009 – AaB Aalborg 2-0 Man City (agg 2 – 2)
Thursday, 26 February 2009 – CSKA Moscow 2-0 Aston Villa (agg 3-1)
Man City 2-1 FC Copenhagen (agg 4-3)
Tottenham 1-1 Shakhtar Donetsk (agg 1-3)
That clearly shows the big difference that the EPL haves between the top teams and the rest.