Barcelona thrashed Deportivo La Coruna to stay top of the league

On a day where both Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid won, Barcelona needed to win their game if they wanted to stay on top of the Spanish league.

Indeed, after a poor run of form, Barcelona has surrendered a 9 points lead and found themselves levelled with Atletico Madrid and only one point over the Real Madrid.


Barcelona responded brilliantly by beating a poor Deportivo La Coruna side by 8-0. This was a humiliating defeat for Deportivo, who was playing at home. However, with the form demonstrated by Luis Suarez and his mates, it would have been difficult for Deportivo to stop them.

Luis Suarez has a magnificent game where he scored four goals and contributed 3 assists for Barcelona. This ended a losing streak which saw Barcelona lose 3 times in succession.

The first goal came in the 11th minute when Suarez connected well with a Rakitic corner. He added a second in the 24th minute after collecting an excellent pass from Lionel Messi. These two goals gave Barcelona a two-goal cushion at half-time.

After the break, Luis Suarez will assist Rakitic for the third goal only 3 minutes after the restart. Five minutes later, Suarez will complete his hat-trick five minutes later and add another goal to make it 5-0 for Barcelona. The remaining goals will be scored by Messi, Neymar, and Batra. Continue reading

Barcelona messed it up at Villarreal the other night

From a winning position, Barcelona messed it up at Villarreal the other night as the hosts made it a draw with their incredible comeback.

But, in spite of that, Luis Enrique was not a disappointed man and that’s because even that draw was good enough for Barcelona to extend the lead as the table toppers.

Atletico Madrid, Barcelona’s challengers for the title in the Spanish top tier this season, had been upset by Sporting Gijon the day before which had kept their points’ tally unmoved.

Barcelona, however, by the virtue of this draw increased their total no. of points by one and thus, still widened the gap between them and Atletico.

According to Enrique, any result which takes you further ahead of your nearest rival is a brilliant result.

The boss said, “One point at a Stadium which has always been hard for the opposition to come and compete at, it has got to be a good result.”

“Also, if you see the side at no. 2 was beaten, while, we have had a point which means our lead has stretched. So, it’s great from that point of view too.”

“Frankly speaking, this performance from Villarreal was not out of the blue. They are actually a class team and whenever you play them here, you won’t find it easy to put brakes on them because they have very good idea of their game.” Continue reading

Barcelona enjoyed success in 2015 after lifting the Club World Cup

Barcelona enjoyed success in 2015 after lifting the Club World Cup with a fine 3-0 win over River Plate.

The team had already won the likes of the Champions League and the league title this year. Even though they were clear favourites for the Club World Cup, the prospect of facing Argentine champions River Plate was always going to be daunting. However, they came away with a quite comfortable victory following goals from Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi. The former had a bigger say with two goals compared to the Little Argentine, who opened the scoring. This was the second consecutive win for the club in all competitions.

The Catalan club will now be able to enjoy a much deserved break before returning to the league campaign with a home game against Real Betis. There were doubts about Barcelona succeeding at a Club World Cup due to the recent domestic form. Dropped points against Deportivo la Coruna and Valencia have allowed the likes of Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid to close the gap. The 1-1 draw against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, though, had little significance since the team had already qualified as the group winners. Barcelona will be hoping to become the first team to defend the Champions League ground when they take on Arsenal in the last 16. Continue reading

Arda Turan will not be able to play for the club until January 2016

Barcelona’s new signing Arda Turan will not be able to play for the club until January 2016 despite having just signed from Atletico Madrid for a mammoth transfer fee of € 41 million.

The 28-year-old is expected to go straight into the first-team as the replacement for Xavi Hernandez. Even though he is a completely different player to the iconic Barcelona legend, it is expected that manager Luis Enrique will sufficiently transformed the team’s tactics in order to suit a player like Turan. Barcelona are under a Fifa ban that will prevent them from adding any new players to the squad until the end of 2015.

The ban has been in place for more than six months, but it has not prevented the club from completing the deals. One of the most important among them is the arrival of Turan. Since the player will not be able to play for Barcelona immediately, there has been suggestions that he will be loaned out to another club for the next five months in order to maintain his fitness levels. Even the 28-year-old suggested that he is frightened at the prospect of being idle for five months. Enrique, though, has stated that the player will not be sent out on loan and that he will want to work with the player until then. Continue reading

Xavi Hernandez will be joining the Qatar club Al Sadd

It has already been announced and confirmed that Xavi Hernandez will be joining the Qatar club Al Sadd at the end of the season as the veteran midfielder is going to be ending his relationship with Barcelona after having made his debut with the Spanish club back in 1998 when he was only 18 years old.

Xavi Hernandez made over 490 appearances for Barcelona and is even regarded to be one of the best central midfielders of all time as he was a specialist in being able to find empty space anywhere in the pitch and being able to slip a pin point pass to his teammates no matter where they are positioned.

At his 35 years of age, Luis Enrique wants to have a fairly young team and Xavi Hernandez no longer plays the same influential role that he used to have at Camp Nou as he used to have some time ago.

It won’t be easy to find a player who can fill in the gap that is going to be left by the absence of Xavi Hernandez but Luis Enrique is rumored to be setting his sights in Athletic Madrid’s Koke. Continue reading