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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April 10th 2009 @ 5:18pm
Dave said | April 10th 2009 @ 5:18pm | Report comment
Ignatius
No problems about the English and yes the EPL being the most competitive league is an opinion but with some facts to back it up re number of teams in the ECL.
Even you would admit Bayern were in terrible form having just lost 5-1 in the league. Also dont forget last time Man Utd played Barca Ronaldo missed a penalty at the Nou Camp. Anyway its the great thing about sport and football specifically that we can all have our opinions and until the teams meet no one is wrong!
Would really enjoy a Man U v Barca final
April 10th 2009 @ 5:21pm
Dave said | April 10th 2009 @ 5:21pm | Report comment
Ignatius
Didnt see ANY Spanish teams in this mornings UEFA Cup! They had all been knocked out.
April 10th 2009 @ 5:53pm
Ignatius said | April 10th 2009 @ 5:53pm | Report comment
Dave,
Completely agree with you about Bayern being in a terrible form, but they lost 5 – 1 with the team which looks like is going to win the Bundesliga.
About Man Utd. vs Barcelona, I really believe that Barcelona played much much better football than Man Utd despite what the scores says, but again as you say this are opinions and in football not necessarily wins the teams who plays better.
Finally about the UEFA Cup, I’m not claiming that the spanish league is the best league or that it haves the best teams, what I’m saying is that is much more competitive. Despite some teams will go to certain matches with a defensive mentallity generally you will see much more attacking ambition than in the EPL. If I remember well in the Athletic Bilbao vs Real Madrid match, Bilbao lost like 5 -2 but they never stopped attacking, then you have matches like Atletico de Madrid 4 – 3 Barcelona, Almeria 3 – 0 Villarreal. Some people will say that is because of bad defending, or even that they are silly, but in any case its much more interesting than watching a team get their eleven players to defend a tie.
April 10th 2009 @ 6:39pm
Vicentin said | April 10th 2009 @ 6:39pm | Report comment
The EPL is not the most competitive league in the world – where do you get that from? It does have four of the richest and strongest teams in world football in it but large slabs of it are rubbish – far worse rubbish than you’ll find in the other major leagues. I keep telling myself that I’m not going to bite when I see this EPL triumphalism but I can’t help it…
Barca were great, Bayern were rather crap but Barca for the large part have played as good as this all year. I can see them struggling this year against a Chelsea or Liverpool – purely physical not about football, but otherwise I think it is theirs to lose – which they certainly can do as their defence is pretty ordinary. It’ll be a win for football if they do it.
April 10th 2009 @ 6:42pm
Dave said | April 10th 2009 @ 6:42pm | Report comment
Ignatius, to be honest, with the ablility of top clubs from any of the major leagues to recruit the best players around the world l think more and more that these leagues will become very similar to each other eg styles of play, technical ability of players etc so that in the future the only way to determine true style of play of a country/region will be by watching the national teams.
April 10th 2009 @ 6:55pm
Dave said | April 10th 2009 @ 6:55pm | Report comment
” but large slabs of it are rubbish – far worse rubbish than you’ll find in the other major leagues.” How do you know that? Where’s the proof? or just an opinion? Schalke 0 Man City 2, Portsmouth 2 Milan 2, are a couple of UEFA Cup results from mid/lower table EPL teams which dont support your claim.
April 10th 2009 @ 8:34pm
Vicentin said | April 10th 2009 @ 8:34pm | Report comment
Large slabs of rubbish? Ok, here we go … Middlesborough, Stoke, Bolton, Sunderland, Blackburn, Wigan, Newcastle, Hull, West Brom and a few others. No disrespect to the supporters of these teams but shit they barely know how to spell football let alone play it. Largely opinion – hell it’s a blog I’m allowed to be subjective but I’ll back my observations over 35 years of following the code – sure, pull up a couple of results that back your own opinion but how in any honesty can you claim the league to be “competitive” when only one of four teams can possibly win the competition year after year. Apart from Everton, Spurs and Villa the rest of them hope for middle table mediocrity as sign of success ….competitive? Bollocks. Don’t believe the hype. Evening all …
April 10th 2009 @ 8:45pm
Slippery Jim said | April 10th 2009 @ 8:45pm | Report comment
These are officially the best clubs in Europe over the last five years:
1 Liverpool Eng 117.499
2 FC Barcelona Esp 114.678
3 Chelsea Eng 114.499
4 AC Milan Ita 110.556
5 Manchester United 103.499
Arsenal Eng 103.499
7 Sevilla Esp 100.678
8 Bayern München Ger 97.114
9 Olympique Lyon Fra 91.033
10 Internazionale Ita 87.556
So Barca are close but technically Liverpool are the best team in Europe at present. Chelsea were last year. The semi’s, highly likely to include Barca Chelsea, should be a cracker!
April 10th 2009 @ 8:48pm
Midfielder said | April 10th 2009 @ 8:48pm | Report comment
Vicentin
Ask Papa he normally has some pills for these attacks … cannot spell football …. that is a tad harsh… BTW what hype are you talking about the European hype or the EPL hype …
April 10th 2009 @ 9:14pm
Slippery Jim said | April 10th 2009 @ 9:14pm | Report comment
Vicentin was a bit harsh on Blackburn, who are one of the few clubs to have won the current Premier League. Wigan are currently in a resectable 8th place, and Middlesborough may be in danger of relegation this season, but are usually decent performers, as is usually the case with Newcastle. Spurs are mid table battlers, who always portray themselves as being better than they are, and who can forget the struggle they had for much of the season to get off the foot of the table. Aston Villa are also usually mid table.
As for Vicentin mentioning rich clubs (a usual resort by anglophobes used to discredit the success of EPL clubs), Barcelona are actually the third richest club in the world, according to Deloitte, richer than Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. Chelsea, for instance, had a net spend this year of – £27,000,000. That’s right – negative.
Notably, Barca have spent more than any other club, second only to Manchester City over 08/09 in money spent:
Money spent by clubs 08/09:
1) Manchester City: €98.850.000
2) FC Barcelona: €90.500.000
3) Tottenham Hotspur: €84.900.000
4) FC Liverpool: €71.800.000
5) Inter : €58.900.000