Messi to lead Barça against PSG

Barcelona will face a decisive clash against Paris Saint-Germain that will decide the winner of Champions League Group F, a victory that will secure a home-field advantage and avoid the biggest European rivals in the next stages of the League.

The French team will remain at the top of the group if they are able to obtain at least a point at Camp Nou. PSG coach Laurent Blanc has admitted that the team will play in defense most of the game and try to score with the little time the have when in possession of the ball.

Barcelona will have a hard time trying to beat a populated and well organized defensive formation an approach that has worked for other rivals in the past and probably this is why they have chosen this approach.

Last game against Espanyol showed that Barcelona is a very good team and could become excelelent if Messi is confortable and inspired. Even with attacking teammates such as Suarez and Neymar, the responsibility always seems to fall on the quadruple Ballon d’Or.

This dependency has been criticized by the press, despite the efforts of Luis Enrique change it since his arrival during the summer.

But Messi is willing to step up and lead the Barça attack versus PSG, as the best player on the planet is not ready to sit back and let the others do his work. Despite the criticism, having a hungry and motivated Messi should be never considered a problem.

But Visitors are wrong if the focus only on Messi, there are other players to worry about, the unpredictable Neymar and Suarez.

The Uruguayan is still working hard to adapt to his new envionment, but he is making a good progress, showing glimpses of his quality and creating space for the other attackers despite only having found the net once.

It’s very difficult to guess the starting line-up for this game due to Luis Enrique tendencies to rotate the team. However due to the importance of the game and top-quality side they are facing, Luis Enrique will put the best XI into the field.

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Barcelona 5 - Espanyol 1

The game started poorly for Barcelona, and Sergio Garcia scored the first goal, but eventually Barcelona found the rhythm and at the end finished the game with a victory and Messi scored three to become La Liga record goalscorer.

This was the first time since 2009 that Espanyol scored at Camp Nou, since another La Masia youth football school graduate, Ivan de la Peña, scored twice.

Garcia ended this situation at 13th minute and Espanyol posed a significant danger against Barcelona net in counter-attack; but The Catalans were able to level the match just before the half time with a Messi strike.

The second arrived early in the start of the second half, again thanks to Messi and the third came from Gerard Pique.

Espanyol never recovered from this two scores and never posed a thread to Barcelona. Pedro scored the fourth just 14 minutes before the end of the match and Messi soon after scored his third and fifth for Barcelona.

Espanyol were lucky not to finish the match with only 10 men in the 49th minute as Eric Bailly stopped Neymar with a fault when the Brazilian was going directly to goal.

There where some warning sings at the start of the match, and more doubts after Espanyol scored the first, but little by little Barcelona started to dominate the game and had their opportunities with a free-kick thrown by Messi that struck the crossbar, followed minutes later by an opportunity for Luis Suarez.

The pressure was building up for the locals until Messi was able to restore parity just before half-time with a 25 yards unstoppable shot directed to the bottom-left corner of the net. Messi scored also the second shortly after after a pass from Suarez, the third came from Pique as he headed Rakitic’s corner into the net.

With the victory in hand, Pedro scored the fourth thanks to Alba’s cross field pass at 77th minute and Messi completed the fifth just four minutes later with a combination with Pedro playing a one-two into the area.

With this victory, Barcelona is still only two points behind current La Liga leader Real Madrid.

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Why Xavi wants to leave?

Last summer, Xavi Hernández decided it was time to leave his team because he didn’t feel good enough, but in the last match against Espanyol, he was able to make 125 passes with 95% of accuracy, better than anyone else during this season. This aren’t numbers for someone not good enough.

The reason why Xavi was thinking on leaving Barcelona is just because he wasn’t good enough, but because he thought he wasn’t; is the lack of self confidence.

When he was a kid, he dominated the pitch, something that only him could not see and when Barcelona called him for a try-out, he couldn’t understand why. Maybe was the fact that his father only told him what he did wrong during the games, maybe something else, but Xavi has never been a self confident player. And this is the reason why during all this years he gave everything in the games.

Xavi almost left FCB before, in 1999 he got a big offer from Milan while having trouble entering the first team, with everybody comparing him to Guardiola. Going to Italy seemed like a good option but his heart couldn’t let go the dream to play for Barcelona so he stayed.

And here we are, 15 years and many titles later again having doubts and thinking on leaving.

Being as humble as he is, he never cared about individual awards, but he is still disappointed not to win 2010 Ballon d’Or, maybe because he was hoping to get the award as a proof to himself, something to remind him that he is not that bad after all.

This time was Luis Enrique who convinced Xavi to unpack the bags and to be of great importance for the team, and the current season performance on the pitch is showing this point.

Maybe he is not the same player as he used to be, but this is far from telling that he is not good enough for Barcelona. He is 34 and probably not fit enough to endure three games a week, but he still can produce magic in the much needed Barcelona midfield.

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Messi yellow card rescinded

During last Sunday La Liga game, Lionel Messi got a yellow card for time-wasting after a plastic bottle thrown from the fans of Valencia apparently hit the argentinian on the head, and now this card is rescinded by the Spanish Football Federation.

 The first appeal issued by Barcelona was rejected by the competitive committee, but the club filled a second one to the higher appeal committee, and on Thursday the committee ruled in favour of the Catalans.

In the document issued, the Spanish Federation said that they were unable to detect a deliberate time-wasting from the player other than the normal reaction after being suffered an aggression from one of the spectators.

The aggression took place when Messi was celebrating the victory goal scored in the last minutes of the game near the corner flag at Mestalla stadium, during the celebration a bottle flew from the stands and hit the strike on the head. After being examined by Barcelona’s medical staff and no injure was visible so with the thumbs-up he walked to his side of the pitch.

It’s unclear if the bottle, a coin or another object hit the Argentina captain and after the match he make no comments about the incident.

With the victory against Valencia, Barcelona was able to keep hard on the heels of the current La Liga leaders Real Madrid after 13 matches. Real Madrid won his saturday match at Malaga for a final 2-1.

Real Madrid can increase the club-record of games won in all competitions to 18 if the win their next home game against Celta Vigo on Saturday, Barcelona will play on Sunday against city rivals Espanyol.

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