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MESSI STILL THE GREATEST

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Lionel Messi might not have won the Ballon d’Or award, but, Gerardo Martino, the Barcelona boss, still considers him the greatest footballer going around at the minute.

The Ballon d’Or award for 2013 was won by Cristiano Ronaldo a couple of days ago and rightly so because he performed much better than Messi last year.

According to Martino, Ronaldo might have been a better performer than Messi in the last 1 year or so, but, if looked overall, Messi is still ahead of the Portuguese.

Speaking in one of his interviews yesterday, the Blaugrana boss said, “First of all, I would like to congratulate Ronaldo for getting the award. He deserved that because he had played well last year. But, as far as the best is concerned, it’s still Lionel for me. Yes, he has had tough times of late, but, there is no one better than him.”

Martino also made it clear that the Spanish centre-back Marc Bartra would be given a contract extension pretty soon.

Martino said, “Marc’s contract is to be extended and I am glad about that. He has developed a great deal in the last few months and he is definitely a star in the making.”

Bartra is a product of Barcelona academy. He had joined the club as 12 years old boy and has been a part of the Barcelona B team as well. For the senior team of Barcelona, he has so far played 23 La Liga matches and has scored 2 goals.

Barcelona’s next match is the Copa Del Rey pre quarter final against Getafe CF. That will be the return leg and Barca will go into it with a lot of confidence because they are already ahead by 4 goals on aggregate.

INJURY LIST GROWS

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The list of injured players for Barcelona just keeps on piling up with Daniel Alves being the latest addition. The Argentine superstar Lionel Messi is already confirmed to be out from the playing fields for the remainder of the year while Victor Valdes and Jordi Alba also picked up an injury that will leave them in the sidelines for an undetermined time lapse.

The medical staff reported that Daniel Alves will take between 7-10 days in making a full recovery.

Barcelona are topping the Spanish league La Liga with 37 points just 3 points ahead of Atletico Madrid and their rivals Real Madrid sitting in 3rd place with 31 points. This means that any kind of slip up from the team of Tata Martino can be the difference in being at the top of the League or falling behind.

Lionel Messi received the Golden Shoe award for the 3rd time on Wednesday after scoring 46 goals last season becoming the 1st player ever to accomplish this task.

“This is a beautiful award that goes to the entire squad for what it has done. It is recognition of the Barcelona dressing room and of all that the team has been doing all year,” Messi said. “It is a group award more than an individual one because those are a lot of goals. I wouldn’t have won it without them, this one or the previous ones.”

It seems however that the Golden Shoe award came at a high price for Messi as he being burdened by injuries in this season only allowing him to score 8 goals in this season and not gonna be able to play up until January.

Even though Barcelona will have to play without Messi and Valdes, Tata Martino is confident his team can cope with their absence.

“We will be without the best player in the world and without the best shot-stopper in the world, but I have little doubt that we will cope without them. We have some great players to replace them,” the Barca coach stated at a press conference.

MARTINO CRITICISED

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Barcelona manager Gerardo Martino has come under criticism in recent weeks for the different style of football that he has been trying to implement at the club. Barcelona are widely known around the world for the passing stellar football while they keep possession for long periods of the match. They are even known to have in excess of 70% possession in some matches. However, the club recently had a match where they kept less than 50% of the ball for the first time in five years. Despite winning the match against Rayo Vallecano 4-0, Martino has come under a lot of criticism.

He has responded to this criticism by saying that it is normal that any manager of Barcelona who is not one of their own or isn’t of Dutch origin is going to be criticised. He has pointed out to the statistics where Barcelona kept 66% of the ball last season. He has said that this is the average position of the club has been 65.8%. So, he feels that the criticism of his managerial abilities is not right at this stage especially when Barcelona are at the top of the table with a perfect record. Martino stated after the Rayo Vallecano match that he wanted Barcelona to have a different dimension as well.

“We don’t want to change anything. Last year Barça had an average of 66% and now we’re at 65.8%. He said that each game needs to be analysed to see if it is essential to keep possession or not. Possession is very important for Barcelona. It was for Newell’s too. But it’s true that you need to look at the characteristics of your opponents, at previous games, and if the same coach is still in place,” said Martino in response to the criticism in recent weeks.