La Liga - Barcelona destroy Villarreal
Cesc Fabregas scored on his first start for Barcelona as the Liga champions opened their defence with a 5-0 win against Villarreal at the Camp Nou.
Having already secured the Spanish and European Super Cups, the Catalans continued their fine early-season form with this thoroughly convincing victory against a forlorn Villarreal side.
Goals from Fabregas and Alexis Sanchez, one from Thiago Alcantara and a brace from Lionel Messi turned the match into a one-sided contest.
Thiago got the ball rolling in the 25th minute. The Spain U21 star made an attacking run through the middle and slotted the ball into the corner of Diego Lopez's goal with his left foot, after Villarreal's defence had backed off.
Then, on the stroke of half-time, Messi deftly played an exquisite through-ball into the path of Fabregas darting into the Villarreal box and the Spaniard, making his La Liga debut, had the simplest of tasks in rounding Lopez and tapping the ball into an empty net.
Matters got worse for Villarreal immediately after the break, as Thiago clipped a delightful through-ball into the path of another debutant, Sanchez, who stormed forward to drive the ball past Lopez and inside the far corner of the net.
The fourth swiftly followed as Villarreal failed to cope with the Barca's intricate passing. This time it was Andres Iniesta delivering the ball through to Messi on the 52nd minute - the Argentine rounding Lopez and finishing with aplomb for his 100th home goal for Barcelona.
Messi was not done there though and, after playing the ball out wide to Thiago in the 74th minute, journeyed into the box before clinically finishing off the latter's return pass.
A defensive injury crisis meant Eric Abidal was Barca's only full-time defender, and Pep Guardiola set them up in a 3-1-3-3 formation with the two attacking banks of Thiago, Iniesta, Fabregas, and Messi, Sanchez, Pedro used to push Villarreal onto the back foot from the off.
This tactic almost reaped those intended early rewards, as Lopez flapped at a corner in the 8th minute and, with the ball being delivered back in, Pedro headed over when unmarked from inside the Villarreal penalty box.
If that wasn't a wake-up call for the enormity of the task facing Villarreal, then it surely came in the 18th minute as Messi drove the ball in low from an acute angle that forced Lopez into a fine, sprawling save. From the resulting corner, Sergio Busquets rose highest in sending a looping header onto the top of the crossbar.
After Thiago had delivered the breakthrough for Barcelona, Villarreal began to grow in confidence, and their strikeforce of Guiseppe Rossi and Nilmar started to find their feet.
Rossi forced Victor Valdes into a fine save in the 38th minute having been played in from the left flank. Despite the Italian striker being flagged marginally offside, Valdes was not to know and the 'keeper produced some flying acrobatics in scooping the ball away, after his initial save led to the ball bouncing back off the crossbar directly underneath his own goalline.
However, that confidence was shaken with Fabregas' goal just before half-time, and was then truly blown out of the water following Sanchez's and Messi's efforts in the opening phases of the second 45 minutes.
In attempting to stem the tide, Villarreal took off Nilmar in the 56th minute and brought on Marcos Senna as a fifth midfielder, but the damage had already been done.
But with Barcelona able to call on the likes of Xavi and David Villa, there was only going to be more misery heaped on the visitors, and this came once again through the enigmatic Messi in the 74th minute.
There were late chances for Villa to make it six and for Villarreal substitute Javier Camunas to claw one back, but neither opportunity was taken.
And so it ended with a strong message being sent to Madrid and all over the league that, once again, Barcelona mean business this season.
Comment 65 - 84 of 84
@ youknowisalie
Surely we do see football differently. I do agree with you that Barcelona plays a beautiful style of football, no doubt about that. If Inter won cheap or not that is another story, but they won. Who Morinho is or not, it does not change the subject. I clearly saw a very fit Real team, and they make that their power but that wat makes football beautiful, that you can win if you are 1,70 m or 1,90 m.
So you may think that Barcelona will win but I will not be that sure about it. I have seen Barcelona with a full team and they play the same, so frankly i do not think it does matter with what people they play, their reserves play the same style of football. Congratulations to them for that, but there is a antidode for every poision and i think AC Milan will beat Barcelona. (on the other hand Ac Milan has his on antidode).
I wanted to say that Barcelona is not that superior and I think they will lose to Real too... just wait and see i guess :).
Ole - ola! ser del Barca!!!
@ funny Alfons.... also... Madrid played better than Barca? That is also a good laugh...
Madrid played in true Mou style... since he cant beat Madrid fair and square... he resorts to cheap tactics, violence, funny claims, and in last game even kicking Fabregas head when he is down and then sneaking to poke assistant Barca coach in the eye and then run like a coward...
Lets face it .... all he has won was questionable from ethics perspective and with a huge budget.... he has zero experience as a player and is just a low class translator....
@ alfons....
Indeed a good laugh again ;-) we will certainly discuss again after the matches with AC MIlan. BTW, I currently live in Italy, close to Milan and am a AC Milan supporter here.... Barca in Spain.
Barca will simply obliterate AC Milan, and Inter won a questionable series against Barca (mou style... or lack of it).
In group phase I was in Nou Camp and witnessed Barca's 3-1 destruction of Inter.... simply a bad day for Barca and lots of support from refs to Inter... and btw, nobody could possibly like the way Inter played... or rather destroyed play ...
Time will tell, but Barca 5-0 without Puyol (whom I consider key), Pique, Dani Alves, etc... and Xavi only in 2nd half... just imagine what would happen with full team in a good day....
La Liga contains currently the 2 most powerful teams in the world - end of. Barca put 3 past Man Utd and it could have been a whole lot more. Madrid ,5 past Spurs and it could have been a whole lot more. The top 2 in La Liga are better than the top 2 in the EPL so those claiming that EPL is far better simply due to Barca/Madrid supremacy in their domestic leagues need to take off their rose tinted glasses. Yes the gap between Barca/Madrid and everyone else is massive but is that very different to Man Utd/Chelsea/M City and the rest? I doubt it very much. You could arge that the top 5 in La Liga are not quite as strong as the top 5 in EPL - yes, but mid table onwards La Liga teams are stronger & hence they always tend to do well in the Europa league.
Alfons, #84 the truth is always bitter. Barca fans forget easily. They don't know that other clubs have passed the path before Barca got here now. You are absolutely correct. Cheating Barca that creat scenes whenever the pressure is on them. By crawing like little babies on the field and waving their hands for the referee to give cards. Lets wait and see how they will do that this year. I repeat pride goeth before a fall.
It's very unfortunate that Barca fans don't know the actual name of their mid fielder. Is it Fabregas or Febrecas. That's by the way. Pride goeth before a fall. Man U, Real Madrid don't need to bother theemselves about Barca becasue they have better things to do period. Real Madrid can not be compared with Barca. Real nine times European champions. check the history books. once more pride goeth before a fall. Other clubs have been there.
First of all where are you madrid loser fans now that come to Barca forum everytime before the match wishing and praying to the devil named mourin-hooooe for Barca to lose or draw. I told you will will always dissapear after the match because Barca will shut you losers up and make you dissapear. Second, what is up with these english fans? If you think La Liga is boring then why don't you go and watch your boring rugby league called premiership. We don't need you premiership fans here, we have plenty of La Liga fans. Why is is that everytime madrid wins or Barca wins you losers come here and say La Liga is a two horse race, La Liga is weak, blah balh blah. Why don't you talk about you league how man utd beat arsenal 8-2, you hardly see Barca or madrid beating a top 4 club by that much. What about man city beating totenham 5-1. You talk about la liga not being competative and only Barca and madrid are winning, if you look at premiership, is it not the same with man utd and chelsea winning for a long time now? Also for your information other la liga teams are not weak, it's just that Barca and madrid are too strong for them that makes them look weak. Remember Atletico madrid beat inter in the european supercup, beat liverpool and fulham in the europa cup. Sevilla also won the europa cup a while back. Now tell me when was an english team that won the europa cup? Long time ago. Barca and madrid are too strong, and they would beat on any english team. We already saw the class between the top english team man utd vs the top spanish team Barcelona. The reason premiership looks competative is because man utd and chelsea are not as strong as madrid and Barca and that is why it seems to you that there is competition, but in the end still man utd or chelsea will win the premiership. If man utd and chelsea were as strong as Barca and madrid then you would see the difference in class in the premiership.
Lots of idiots told in here that Fabrecas will be a "bench warmer" .
Such a good product .Made in Arsene Wenger !
@ youknowisalie, ;)
I was not trying to make you laugh, even though I wish you have a laugh every day ;), but I am really serious.
I mentioned that not more than a year ago Inter beat Barcelona. I and the same Inter team Ac Milan dominated. They had the bad luck last year with Spurs that they could not use half of the team because of injuries ect. but the champions leauge could have had a different result.
But this year things are different, the team is healthy and if you go on on paper (everything can happen in a game, injuries, ref, form) Ac Milan will give Barcelona some thing to work on for the coming year.
Look at the teams, where Barcelona has a force Milan is even stronger, and where Barcelona have a weakness Milan have a force.
I am really looking forward to 13-09, and i hope you will come back here and tell me I was right ;) :P
Well, will see in 2 weeks anyway, a lot can happen in 2 weeks...
Greets.
ps: By the way, i saw that Madrid dominated the games with Barcelona, so this aint gone be Barcelona's year anyway...
The EPL has twice as many clubs as the SPL . The EPL has maybe 4 teams that dominate , The SPL has 2 .
Laliga is the same .
why the english think the EPL is so special God only knows
barcelona is too superior. they will annihilate man utd and real madrid this season.
la liga starting too look like the SPL
Of course Barca destroy other teams its like putting Man Utd in the Championship then saying oooo aren't they good, apart from Real Madrid none of the other Spanish teams can compete financially with these two and will therefore field inferior teams to be torn apart by Barca and RM.
@ alfons (post 80).
You are indeed very funny... thank you for the laugh, but you cant be serious... AC Milan is best team in Italy, no doubt.... but a league apart from Barcelona and even Madrid... they may have a chance against Valencia or Villareal... maybe against Liverpool, MU, Chelse or City.... in PL..... but not much else...
That is how the masters dictate the pace, others has not kicked a ball but Barcelona has already won two trouphies, Fabregas is in a brand new football world, playing just two games and won two trouphies. Lets hope the leg breakers will not bring in armord tanks when the chips are down because the frustration has just beging. Emmanuel Ezeh.
Barcelona is nice, but you underestimate other clubs also. It seems you guys see only EPL but there are other teams out there. Do not forget that not more than 1,5 year ago there were Inter en Bayern at the champions league final. Inter beat Barcelona by the way.
I think this year Ac Milan will win the champions league and to give you a taste of what is coming, check Barcelona Ac Milan 13-09-2011, maybe you will be surprised that there is nothing like a Barcelona supremacy. They play entertaining football though, but Ac Milan is better ;)
d
Don't worry we going to send ur Barcelona B to play in the Premier League they can't make it in first division because Barcelona FC are in there,so we will send ur Barcelona B to play in Premier League!lol
I think Barcelona should play the pl , to be honest we hate the spanish liga and the spanish people.
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