flywoman | Entries tagged with sergio busquets

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Jordi Alba and I apparently feel the same way about this result...

Even biased Barcelona fan that I am, I would never have predicted this victory. Barca arrived at the second leg of this Champions League round without an away goal, having lost to AC Milan 0-2 at the San Siro. In order to stay in the tournament, they had to score at least two goals in regular time AND keep a clean sheet, which they had not managed to do from mid-January to their Saturday match against Deportivo. In that recent match, I had seen promising signs of a sharper Barca, a hungrier Barca... but they had still only scored two goals total against the lowest team in the league standings. Tonight they were going to have to do much, much better.

( And they did. )

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So I didn't get to watch the match, but I just saw the highlights. The reviews I'd read suggested that we were absolutely awful, created no chances, etc. In fact, it seems to me that we were unlucky in attack - Messi was close to a goal early on and almost sent a free kick into the bottom corner, and there was a rebound that could have been converted by Busi, to name a few. While I wish that Villa had started and Iniesta had played left mid with Cesc on the bench, I think that the real problem, as has been so typical lately, was our defense. Pique's clumsy tackle meant a PK for Ronaldo, and no one was marking Di Maria right in front of our goal when he received the pass and scored. But if you watched the match, please feel free to correct me!

Tito Vilanova approves

( Feliz Dia de los Reyes! )

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( At what price victory? )

BFFs Gerard Pique and Carles Puyol celebrate this season's final victory

( The Copa del Rey: Pep's first and final trophy as manager of Barcelona )

( And, of course, there were locker room photos. )

Now it's off to the Euros for many of the Spanish players from both teams, who will miss tomorrow's friendly game against Serbia due to the late date of this Copa final. We won't see our boys in blaugrana again until the start of next season - when hopefully they will all arrive well-rested, injury-free, and ready to reclaim the Spanish league.