Blinking and pinching would not help. This was to be a nightmare Barcelona players and fans alike would never wake from. Barcelona had been defeated by Rubin Kazan. The relatively unknown Russian opposition took on the reigning European Champions on Barcelona’s home turf. Little did Barcelona know that this formality of a match was soon to evolve into the greatest upset so far in the 2009-10 footballing calendar.

Talks of a crisis were seemingly quashed as Barcelona thumped Zaragoza 6-1 only for the talks to be reignited with a woeful display over Osasuna in the following league fixture. Critisism has been flying from all angles with Guardiola’s men being blasted left right and centre by the relentless Spanish media.

For Barcelona, it stops now.
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Rubin Kazan’s Argentinian striker Alejandro Domínguez took some time to answer questions from UEFA, where he said that they could not even dream about qualifying for the Champions League, and now they lead their group.

Two months ago, what would you have said if someone had told you Rubin would lead their Champions League group after three matches?

That it was impossible! We have no experience in European competition and given the group we were drawn in, it was unthinkable this might happen. We didn’t even dream of qualifying. When we found out what group we were in, personally I was pleased, and thinking about enjoying games at venues like Camp Nou and San Siro and facing players of the highest quality in packed stadiums. Opportunities like this don’t come along every day and you have to enjoy them. But most of my team-mates were very worried. I think in South America we have a different view of these kinds of games to Russians. But I personally took it as great news.

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“A draw would be a great result for us but we know it will be a very difficult,” Alejandro Dominguez, Rubin Kazan’s Argentinean striker said yesterday. The ‘Chori’ Dominguez, who came to Europe after playing for Quilmes and River Plate, could not be more sincere. “It’s hard to play against Barcelona. If we went out and press them, after 20 or 30 minutes we could ‘melt’ and will not be able to maintain the rhythm,” he said in a dialogue with the programs ‘Tot Gira’ of Radio Catalunya and ‘Tu Diras’ of RAC1.

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