flywoman

With Osasuna in the relegation zone and a midweek match against Real Madrid looming, it was no surprise that several key Barcelona players, including Iniesta and Jordi Alba, were rested today. But enough talent remained on the pitch for an unusually calm and enjoyable match, sandwiched as it was between two intense Copa elimination confrontations.

Leo Messi was the first to score, literally running rings around Osasuna's keeper after receiving a lovely assist from Xavi Hernandez. The image below neatly encapsulates the relationship between our star player and the opposing team for pretty much the entire match ;).

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However, that doesn't mean that we managed to keep a clean sheet (does it ever?). Around the 24th minute, a corner kick bounced around our back half for a bit before Raoul Loe received it in the penalty arc and slammed it into the goal, leveling the score. But less than five minutes later, Osasuna defender Arribas was unlucky enough to receive a second yellow card for a handball in the box. Osasuna were down to ten men for the rest of the match, their coach was sent off for protesting, and Messi made good on the ensuing PK. There were several more opportunities, including a wrongly called offside and a Messi header that ricocheted off the crossbar, and in the last five minutes of the first half, Xavi passed to an advancing Dani Alves, who crossed the ball perfectly into Pedro Rodriguez's path. Pedro has been on a run of good form lately - welcome news, especially in light of alternate right winger Alexis Sanchez being in a pretty serious slump this season.

Coming back from the break with a pretty comfortable 3-1 lead and one man up, Barcelona were able tor relax and play for the remainder of the match. David Villa, on the left, was especially active in the absence of Alba and Iniesta; he assisted not one but two more Messi goals in a matter of minutes and was very unlucky not to score himself.

Meanwhile, Alexis came on for Pedro with almost thirty minutes yet to go, managed to get into excellent scoring positions several times, but either shot wildly or opted to pass to another player. I really wonder what is going to become of this kid. Villa is a natural striker, always asking for the ball and going for goal. Alexis is fast and an excellent team player, but he simply doesn't have the hunger, the self-confidence, to take advantage of his shooting opportunities. If they're going to keep him, I think that they should consider playing him as a true winger or even right mid and have him cross in to the real strikers: Messi and Villa (or Iniesta or Tello, for that matter).

Anyway, Messi got a poker - his hat tricks are no longer newsworthy - and took the ball home with him, and for once we finished a match without any injuries or expulsions. This presumably puts us at a significant advantage over Real Madrid, who are only fielding about half their starters between injuries and sanctions. Hopefully we will be able to take advantage of this on Wednesday...