The Result: RCD Espanyol 1-1 FC Barcelona
RESULT:
RCD Espanyol: 1
FC Barcelona: 1
GOALSCORERS:
RCD Espanyol: Álvaro (86′)
FC Barcelona: Fábregas (16′)
LINEUPS:
RCD Espanyol: Cristian Álvarez, Amat, Raúl Rodríguez, Héctor Moreno, Dídac, Forlín, Romaric, Sergio García, Verdú, Weiss, and Thievy
FC Barcelona: Valdés, Alves, Puyol, Piqué, Abidal, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Fábregas, Messi, and Alexis
SUBSTITUTES:
RCD Espanyol: Casilla, Javi López, Galán, Rui Fonte, Dátolo, Álvaro, and Cristian Gómez
FC Barcelona: Pinto, Fontàs, Adriano, Mascherano, Thiago, Keita, and Pedro
SUBSTITUTIONS:
RCD Espanyol: Javi López on for Weiss (46′), Álvaro on for Romaric (64′), Casilla on for Cristian Álvarez (81′)
FC Barcelona: Pedro on for Alexis (72′), Keita on for Fábregas (85′)
CAUTIONS:
RCD Espanyol: Romaric (45+1′), Raúl Rodríguez (70′), Álvaro (76′), Forlín (90+1′), Casilla (90+3′)
FC Barcelona: Messi (14′)
Photo: Getty Images
Oh.. Please shut up you trini barca4 life.
If you r fans of mou, why you post here?
As for the game. Yes, I think we have lost the liga. Just dont bother to watch it again
Yeah I am idiot and shit
Stfu
Let's learn from Pep's today comment on press conference: Guardiola: "I can not be unhappy with the team. That never." #fcblive
I just show the handball again, that is a scandal! The defender blocked the ball like a goalkeeper!
Perez you son of a b**h!
i meant saw
The 3-4-3 isn't the problem, the only difference between playing 4-3-3 and 3-4-3 the way we play it is that we have less wingers and more players through the middle, which is where Barca struggle to play through when teams defend so well, so its only logical to do this.
3-4-3
Valdes
Puyol – Pique – Abi
Busquets
Xavi – Iniesta
Fabregas
Alves – Messi – Alexis
4-3-3
Valdes
Alves (playing RW anyway) Puyol(pushed to right back) Pique(pushed to left back) Abidal(playing RM or RW)
Busquets(Dropped into CB )
Xavi – Iniesta
Pedro – Messi – Alexis
So the only real difference is, is that we dont play with 2 wingers on each side, we take those 2 players put one in CB (so busquets can link up with attack more) and another one behind Messi (more play through the middle.
I could go on for ages about this match but the main things that stopped us from winning was…
Espanyol left 3 attackers up front when Barca were attacking, which meant when Espanyol got the ball clear there were players to compete for the ball against Pique and Puyol etc. which I've hardly ever seen happen against Barca in recent years, usually the ball just goes right back to our defence and we start again
Espanyol managed to avoid going too deep, which meant the gap between defence-Midfield-attack was less that usual making it harder for Barca to find space in between, particularly Cesc and Messi.
The whole team didn't defend well enough from the front, we didn't press as we usually did which meant our defence was actually having to defend rather than press (this is Barca at their most vulnerable)
spot on…3/4/3 is the problem
Come on. Be patient. Trust Barca. They will catch up. We ll be havnig big smiles in March and rest of season.
[youtube PQ7MCQ4cQlQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ7MCQ4cQlQ youtube]
That was going top left corner
Raul Rodriguez (Espanyol): "The video is clear. I played the ball with the hand. It was a penalty." #fcblive
How I wished Messi was in Pedro's position to strike that ball. He would have been a lot calmer.
what? how can you say that?? pedro executed well, and the guy used his hand to save the ball from going in. don't talk pedro down, as far as i am concerned, he had a bigger presence on the pitch in the 15 minutes he played that messi all night.
where are u totalbarca writers?amanda,megryan,ivich,alexandra,maria,doris and others that speak from this awful game and say ur opinion,that we become calm,my heart stop moments and i am nervous and i havent calm.i breath hardly.
Barca,why?
Gimme a break, OMG
Do my fellow cules now understand that we cant always win with our false 9 n 10 formations. We actually need a typical striker to vary our attack, we’ve lost villa n afellay n we arent ready to buy this winter so why not promote soriano for a typical 9. Lets give this guy a chance, what do u think guys?
trinibarca.4.life..stop talkinh bullshit about Pep,and if you such a big fan of Mou why don’t you get the hell off this site and go 2 1 of his…your opninions are very much starting to piss me off,on the other note I DO NOT understand why some of you are attcking Messi?since when does Messi make Barca?is it not a team?with 10 other players based on the pitch with him?you can’t expect him to always come 2 the rescue when things don’t go our way and then be pissed if he doesn’t do what you want!
Please. Were you criticizing the 3-4-3 when we beat Madrid with it, and when we played one of our games of the season against Santos with it? No. But then again I am sure you found something else to criticize then. The 3-4-3 isn't even very different from the 4-3-3, anyway, the only key difference is where Dani Alves is, and he moves around a lot during a match anyway. Besides, it seems like an audacious move by Pep which just might work, it just needs time. And if it fails it fails and he will have learned.
Did people not also complain when Pep moved Messi to the false 9? And when he started playing without a striker? When he brought in Cesc?
stop u redundant c*nt sorry folks but he is annoying
The bullshit begins and will continue until we win the league, UCL and copa.
IN BARCA AND PEP WE TRUST!!!!
we lost liga becuz we never can win whole 20 reamin games! In other hand madrid never lose point,
I hate espanyol,they stole another liga from us like 2007,there they scored last minutes like here and messi used his hand .
Barca will win. Look at Real Madrid. They have been lucky but Mou have used same players for whole games. They will be very tired at the end of season. They can get injured. RM is not having a good bench like Barca. I have been watching RM closely, and they are very vulnerable. I believe they ll have problems keeping lead when they have to think of CL and Copa. RM can not go on winning for the rest of season. It is impossible! Granada played very well against them but had defensive weakness. Wait until RM faces stronger teams. I trust in Pep and Barca. They ll take care of business. We ll crush RM!
Dudes there’s no point in us arguing with eachother.well hopefully do better next time…and the loooser who sayin he supports Mou,STOP reffering to the match as”pep has cost US points “there’s no US,your not a true Barca fan!so stop make yourself out 2 be 1,I think every1s growing a lil tired of you#bored.
ViSCA BARCa Nyt Cules…Goodluck to Xavi and Messi for tomorro
everyone should watch the awards ok??
you just never stop harping on the same old stuff.
please ust go to some other site where you won't have to complain all the time.
I think we're lacking hunger that we used to have which is not unusual for teams that have in the last few enjoyed great success.
Remember the 08-09 team? we were so hungry we used to go all out on everyone.
No mercy for the opposition and that was mostly spurred on from the humiliation we suffered the season before.
Look at it this way if we are playing in champions league finals every other year games against small teams are hardly gonna get the juices going is it?
It's no coincidence our best performance has been against our biggest threat (madrid).
Too often we are playing to the level of the other team and it's cost us again.
Anyhow lots of football to be played still and I'm sure madrid will drop points here and there we just need to be more consistent against the smaller teams and we will be fine.
Relax, you whiny whores. This was a draw, not a loss. We will win the league. I’m 100% sure we will win it, because Madrid does not have the mental strenght and expirience to stay on the top of the league for such a long time. Plus they’re tired as fuck.
Messi was crap
Xavi was crap
Hell the whole team besides Inieta, Busi were crap
343 needs to stop. Don't give me lectures about it being no different than 433 because i have seen both and we've seen the one thats won us a lot of trophies
I thought we played well, however were a little flat in front of goal. Espanyol played good tonight, now watch them lose 5-0 to Madrid as usual.
But all I can say is I hope this ref and staff don't ever officiate a single Barca match the rest of the season, absolute crap!
1. They call a handball on Messi early in the match when he stole the ball and passed it off to Cesc for the score, but they don't call that blatant handball on Pedro's shot that would have given us the victory.
2. Before that, Messi was clearly onside on the through pass that would have given him a 1v1 with the goalkeeper.
3. Romaric should have been ejected, for deliberately elbowing Pique in the head after he pwned him on the header before that.
Overall, I do hope it's nothing serious for Alvarez and that he gets better.
It's time for me to say this: if we lost every game for the rest of this season (not too likely!), I'm still a culer, there is no club like FCB, and I'm their supporter as long as we both are alive.
I believe Barca will still win the league. But, they are seriously lacking good finishers. In '09 we had Eto'o, Henry and Messi. Now we have… Messi. Madrid have Benzema, Higuain and Ronaldo, not to mention Kaka, Di Maria et al. David Villa has been out of form for so long that if he wasn't injured he'd be benched for big games anyway. Pep changed the formation to accommodate Cesc, who incidentally is a signing they didn't need. 70 million for Ibra and 40 million for a 29 year old David Villa was seriously bad business. Too much reliance on Messi, which means too much pressure on him. Not a good thing for a 24 yr old lad.
We shouldn't get mad, it's true that we played awfully but some decisions changed the game (not to mention the handball at the end). If Messi wasn't called offside and had scored, the team's spirit would've been high and Espanyol would've lost their fighting spirit.
Don't blame Pep because he is the reason Barca are where they are today. It is because we always stick to our philosofy and tactics, we are diffrent from other teams. This wasn't the first time this season we get denied a clear penalty but it's certainly the most decisive one.
To be honest i think that our chances of winning the league are slim. Real Madrid's boogy team, Deportivo La coruña are in the second devision, and instead came our boogy team Real Betis (away). Real Madrid are strong against semi-big team and i can only see them dropping points against teams like Zaragoza (away). but the form they are in right now..well, it seems as if they are going to drop so many points.
Barca need to pick up their away form if we are to have a chance in the league. VISCA EL BARCA!
aren't*
Why all these noises .This is just a the midle of la Liga and this can happen to any team to lose a points and we need to be strong and beleave on our team.Visca Barca /
Leave it to cules to discount their teams ability to win the league. We are only 5 points behind, with half the number of matches left for gods sake. Stop crying like the league is lost.
Hear, hear!
There are games where we play badly, but the important thing is to defend your lead. Giving away a goal in the 86th minute is just unacceptable. When you are defending such a slim lead, you got to defend in numbers. Arrogance or laziness, I don't know, but Barca didn't do that. I saw madrid defending in numbers against Valencia. We got to work hard in the final minutes to protect our lead.
wow u all give up so easilly…and btw every team has bad games
messi was a the worst player out of everyone he was not interested at all, he was prolly thinking about his ceremony award for ballon d'or lol
Keep the faith Cules! Not the best performance today by a long shot… Barca has always responded well to adversity and this time will be no different. Yes a costly 2 points were loss but we are still in all competitions and the season is still young. I have been a Barca fan since 2000 and I will never doubt this team. Win or lose, this Barca team has given me so much joy in my life and I will always be behind this team! Vamos BARCA!
I think alexis shouldve tried to score himself firstly.
why madrid can do better away match with lot goals? Por que?
Enough with the looser mentality guys! It's ****ing January! Yes we are five points behind, but there are still things that Pep and the team can do, so don't give up on them! The ref was crap, I agree, but both teams suffered/benefited from that. Now, up and away we go!!
I admit that the team did not play that well but you got to agree that we had some bad calls against Barcelona. That handball should have been a penalty and it should have been a win for Barca. The truth is that even if Barcelona played bad, they could have won yesterday. Barcelona could have drawn the match against Getafe if it had not been for a bad call. Of course, these are excuses but valid ones. A team cannot play great every game. I have a feeling that Real will drop points. Give Barca a break. After all, they won the Club world cup and kicked the posterior of Real Madrid. Sure, that does not win you the La Liga but Real will drop points and the La Liga will be Barcelona's God willing
3-4-3 means only 1 player on each and more players on the centre but 4-3-3 means more players on the wing,centre and defense.FB move to and fro down the flank,WG move inside the box like a diamond 4-4-2 and outside.F9 tend to move to CF and to CM,SMF move to the CM and to the FB to cover. DMF and CB also change poition but 3-4-3 limits movement as F9 can’t go to th CM,no FB to cover flank only WG tend move even to the backs,3-4-3 to me only does well when there is a CF like madrid.WE STILL HAVE 50% chance
How many yellow cards eliminate player on Copa del Ray?
Real Madrid usually drop points against teams no one expects them to drop points to. Last year most of the teams they dropped points against were teams that were either in danger of being relegated or actually were relegated, including home losses to Gijon and Zaragoza, IIRC.
i agree..pep sucked