Chapter 464: Mr. Revealed
Barca's current squad gives Pep Guardiola plenty of rotation capital, so he left out Samuel Eto'o, Xavi, Hanssen and Valdés from the squad for the Copa del Rey trip to Atletico Madrid in midweek, while Puyol, Marquez and Hleb also remained at the club due to injury. Thierry Henry rotated and rested, with Bojan, Pinto, Cáceres, Silvinho and other fringe players all getting the chance to start. Barcelona had an almost completely different squad compared to the game against Mallorca, with only Toure left in the starting line-up and Pep Guardiola rotating 10 men in one go, but the new players did the same and did not disappoint.
In the 12th minute, Messi opened the scoring. In the 58th minute, Messi was violated by Atletico Madrid defender Heitinga, Barcelona won a red card and a penalty, and Messi used a penalty to expand the score to 2-0! In the 69th minute, Atletico Madrid's Ufarusi once pulled back a goal to change the game to 1-2, but in the 80th minute, Iniesta passed diagonally from the left side of the penalty area, Messi pulled the ball in front of the small penalty area and shook the opponent's goalkeeper Kupe and shot, the ball hung straight into the near corner into the net, Barcelona extended the lead 3-1, and Messi created a hat trick. With four goals in the Copa del Rey, the season's total has reached 19, significantly surpassing Samuel Eto'o's tally of 15 and defending his status as the team's top scorer.
Now Barcelona gives the feeling that no matter who plays, the scene and the result will not change, and the team will always win. The absences of Han Sen and others went unnoticed because their replacements did just as well as they did. Even goalkeeper Pinto, who rarely played, made a couple of good saves on the pitch. And the new centre-back combination of Cáceres and Pique, despite conceding a goal, was also satisfactory overall. Barca's advantage is so clear. Even with a brutal foul, Atletico couldn't stop the team's high-speed progress.
However, after Barcelona's big victory, the whole team continued to unify their thinking, and Guardiola said in a meeting within the team that although it is not yet the decisive period in May, the marathon schedule in January is very important. In the league we have to stay ahead of the curve and lay the groundwork domestically for the Champions League restart in late February. Meantime. The Copa del Rey competition cannot be given up either. Based on the current form of the team, Barcelona are capable of playing on three fronts, except for the Champions League, which has not yet begun. In the league and the Copa del Rey, Barcelona have a huge advantage.
In the 18th round of the weekend, Barcelona challenged their opponents away at the Sardar Stadium in Osasuna, which was played in fog. Barcelona has won 2 and drawn 2 in the last 4 games against Osasuna. The last 2 of them were drawn. The two sides have met 60 times in history, with Barcelona having the upper hand with 33 wins, 14 draws and 13 losses, including 10 wins, 10 draws and 10 losses away. With Marcos out injured, Hansen, Valdés, Puyol, Abidal, Xavi, Thierry Henry and Samuel Eto'o all rotated into the starting line-up.
In this game, Barcelona broke the deadlock in the 45th minute, Messi, who has been well-rested since the New Year, passed the ball and Eto'o fired a powerful shot into the bottom left corner of the box into the net for his 16th league goal of the season.
Osasuna equalised in the 63rd minute in the second half. Prashiel takes a corner from the right, Miguel? Franho's header from six yards out is in the back of the net. 73rd minute. Osasuna surprisingly took the lead when Juanfran flicked past Abidal on the right side of the box and crossed for Pandiani to slot past Puyol from six yards. In the 77th minute, Pep Guardiola boldly replaced Keita, who started with Bojan, and gave it a go. In the 79th minute, the opponent Prahil was injured by Valdés, which caused another dispute. However, Barcelona equalized in the 80th minute, Hansen split the ball in the middle, Alves burst into the right side of the box and crossed, Xavi swept home from 12 yards. Barcelona took the lead again in the 85th minute, Hansen passed the ball in the middle again, Messi shook continuously from 25 yards, broke through the opposing defender and fired a left-footed shot into the top left corner of the net. This is his 11th league goal this season, the total number of goals in the third line has reached 20, and Hansen's league assists have also risen to 10, 10 goals and 10 assists, Hansen's current comprehensive data in the league is second only to Messi, assists are the same as Messi, only 1 less Messi in the number of goals, and in terms of balance, although Eto'o scored 16 goals, but only 3 assists, Xavi has 11 assists to rank first in the team, but Xavi only 3 goals! This is also the reason why Guardiola relies heavily on Hansen's role in the league.
In the 89th minute, Yaya Toure replaced Han Sen, which also attracted boos from the audience due to deliberately delaying time. After the final rotation, Barcelona once again showed a strong foundation and thickness, winning 6 consecutive victories of 3-2 away from home and continuing to lead by 12 points.
Barcelona was reeling but won. Pep Guardiola led the team to all but one of the eight away games that lost to Numancia in the first round of the league, thus breaking the record of seven consecutive away wins in La Liga held by Real Madrid in 1960-61. These eight away Barcelona defeated Sevilla 3-0, conquered Villarreal's Love Song Stadium 2-1, and also withstood the test of different environments and venues, the water battle against Malaga, the fog battle against Osasuna, but the result was the same - victory. If you look at all fronts, Barcelona have a better away record this season, including the Champions League and the Copa del Rey, Barcelona have now won 13 consecutive away games. In particular, after 18 rounds of the league, Barcelona have scored 47 points, which has equaled Schuster's halfway record set last season, so that as long as they remain unbeaten against Deportivo La Coruna in the next round, they can set a new La Liga record.
Just after the game, in the dressing room, Barcelona's stars congratulated Xavi and Messi, who were shortlisted as one of the five Zuihou players of the year Shijie Footballer of the Year, the other three being Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo, AC Milan's Kaka and Liverpool's Fernando Torres. Xavi and Messi will also immediately follow President Joan Laporta to Zurich, Switzerland, for the FIFA Awards Ceremony the following evening, where the final Shijie Footballer of the Year award will be announced.
In addition, Iniesta, Eto'o and Hansen, who were selected for the 23-man squad, won honors for FC Barcelona, but they had no choice but to enter the top five of Zuihou, so naturally they did not go to the scene for sightseeing.
However, Han Sen's honor room was renovated this week, not only purchased a large screen color TV, but also renovated a cinema-style seat for nearly ten people under Osvaldo's well-informed advice, which makes his honor room also have the function of a small theater, of course, as soon as the small theater was renovated, Han Sen invited Binyan, Osvaldo and Han Weimin and others to come to the home to watch the FIFA Shijie Footballer Award Ceremony!
Founded in 1991, the Shijie Annual Awards Ceremony has entered its 18th year this year, and this year FIFA has fine-tuned the annual awards ceremony, first moving the time of the awards ceremony from December to January of the following year to avoid competing with the Ballon d'Or, and secondly, for the first time, the Zuihou selection of Shijie Footballer and Miss Footballer was circled among five candidates. In the men's football team, Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Kaka, Torres and Xavi are fortunate enough to enter the competition at the Zuihou stage. A few days ago, Xie Yalong called Han Sen, saying that he was also invited to participate in the award ceremony, and will represent the Chinese Olympic team to receive the annual FIFA President's Special Award, which is awarded to some influential figures or teams of the year according to FIFA's own wishes. The Chinese Olympic team has achieved remarkable results in the Olympic Games held on home soil this year, and has naturally been favored by FIFA. Xie Yalong first asked Han Sen's opinion on this vote, saying that since the new coach of the national team has not been determined, he will vote for the head coach and captain of the national team on behalf of the national team. After listening to Han Sen's opinion, Xie Yalong said that he would come to Spain to visit Han Sen after participating in the awards.
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In fact, when I started writing at the starting point, I also thought about whether I could one day become the god of the starting point, and now it seems that this road is not easier than an ordinary player growing into a shijie footballer, or even more difficult! Alas, for my sake, let's send me a little monthly pass! (To be continued......)