As tonight’s Catalan derby approaches, it seems the excitement is rising for all concerned, including two of Espanyol’s most important players. Speaking ahead of tonight’s meeting between FC Barcelona and Espanyol, both midfielder Javi Marquez and striker Luis Garcia have indicated just how important the match is for their team, with not only local pride at stake, but also the possibility of playing in Europe next season.
Saturday, April 17, 20:00 CET – Estadio Cornella-El Prat, Barcelona
Tonight, FC Barcelona will face a side that is 14th in La Liga.
Tonight, FC Barcelona will face a side that has scored 26 times this season compared to Barcelona’s 80.
Tonight, FC Barcelona will face a side that has struggled against relegation this season.
Surely this match will be a rout, a total demolition, an exhibition of the greatest football team on a planet. This would be the formality case in all football games, as Barcelona’s superiority initiated an absolute slaughter.
However there is a factor that completely extinguishes all the aforementioned problems with FC Barcelona’s opponents. It is the factor that this match is a derby, a rivalry match and thus this quells all form, statistics and records, as a rivalry match is won on will and will only. That alone is what makes this game so special.
Racing Santander winger and former FC Barcelona player Luis Garcia, 31, has spoken of his regret at not making more of an impact during his time at the Camp Nou. “I would have liked to have had more years at Barca, but the train passed me by, and I had to take a tough decision. I wanted more minutes.”
The Catalan winger, who moved to Liverpool at the start of the 2004/2005 season, went on to explain how he had not only enjoyed his time in the first-team but also playing for Barca B, where he won promotion with the youth team, playing with current Barca favourites Xavi, Víctor Valdés and Carles Puyol, who he also played with during his single season in the first-team. “I knew them from Barca B, when we won promotion to segunda A at the Bernabeu. That’s one of my best memories, as everything was really in favour of Madrid that day.”
Of his one and only season with the first-team Garcia said, “it was great. We put in an extraordinary second half to the season and we finished second after a really bad start”.
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