Matchday 33: Levante - Barcelona | Sat Apr 14 | CET 22:00/ET 16:00

Alves and Pique travelled with the team, Afellay and Keita () didn't

Valdés, Pinto; Alves, Piqué, Puyol, Xavi, Cesc, Iniesta, Alexis, Messi, Thiago, Mascherano, Sergio, Pedro, Adriano, Cuenca, Montoya y Tello.

-------------------------------------Valdes------------------------------------
Alves-----------------Pique--------------------Machete-----------------Adriano
---------------BusiFabriesta/BusiThiagesta/BusiFabriago-----------------
----Cuenca-----------------------Messi----------------------Pedro/Alexis

Machete off -> Puyol on
Iniesta off -> Xavi on
Cuenca off---ze FLASH() on

Busquets Xavi and Iniesta must play for me. This will not be an easy game. Mascherano and Pique should start with Puyol at LB and Alves RB. Messi Cesc and Alexis up front.

Fabregas back :dance:

Looool no Keita!!! Pep seeing the light! Pretty simple... Any team he puts out will be pretty acceptable and must do the job. It's flash time though... Hasn't had a good run in a while. I expect to see him come on in the 70th min. The flash

Pep didn't see the light, Keita just picked up some muscle pains

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Pep didn't see the light, Keita just picked up some muscle pains

BC... don't break a man's heart...

Levante are a great team and they are going to be playing at home. Tough match for Barcelona.

I believe Barça should start full strength, try to kill the game off and rest some players afterwards as opposed to start a weak team and bring senior players if things went wrong.

Fabriago will only be formed if Busquests is at the holding mid.

No Affelay? Why?

I'd love to see him get some time in somewhere!

Either way, I say it's a comfortable win.

Afellay is probably not match fit. He has just been given medical clearance. And Guardiola insisted in a recent press conference that Afellay must work hard to get back in the team.

Barcelona starting XI:
Valdés, Puyol, Mascherano, Adriano, Xavi, Sergio, Thiago, Pedro, Alexis, Messi and Cesc

Terrible first half. The team failed to create any clear cut chances despite all that possession.
we could lose the league right here if we don't step it up.
I have faith we will come back.

I felt like we were playing fine up to the penalty. We were creating chances and our finishing failed, but we could've been 2-0 up. After the penatly we were dreadful.

Agreed. Guardiola's line-up was very questionable and his tactics even more so. Did he want to rest some players ahead of the Chelsea match? Well, one thing is for sure, he changed the tactics and positions of players twice during the first half and he is about to bring Cuenca in the second half, meaning he has realised his poor choice of tactics. Hopefully for either Fábregas or Thiago. They both have been very poor.

Also Alexis on wings, no more please. His should play as number 9 this match.

Personally prefer this:

-------------------------------------Valdés------------------------------------
Puyol-------------------------Mascherano-------------------------Adriano
----------------------------------Busquets-----------------------------------
---------------------Xavi------------------------Fábregas-------------------
----Cuenca-----------------------------------------------------Pedro--------
-------------------------Messi-------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------Sánchez--------------------------

We survived.

ThiaGOAT. _O_

I just tuned in the last 10 min. Why did we play so bad? The penalty we got appears as an offensive faul in the first look, but Cuenca has been pushed and that made him hit the Levante player on the feet.

Vital 3 points for Barcelona. I was not impressed by the way they played though. As BarrileteCosmico said, Barcelona were superior up until Levante scored. Didn't see much of Barcelona's vital diamonds/triangles and I think Levante did quite well to close the gaps in the middle. The last 5-6 minutes were very enjoyable to watch with Levante searching for an equaliser and Barcelona nervously defending.

Adriano - Went forward pretty well, but his defensive decision making was

Thiago - Not convinced by his performance. I have no doubt in his talent but being a CM is not in his blood.

Second penalty wasnt a pen, im sick of these shat spanish refs ruining the credibility of the game.

Anyway this is why i was terrified of Levante away, they defend with discipline and compactness, i knew this would be a tough game and ill admit we were lucky to leave valencia with three points. We cant play like this against chelsea.

Mascherano MOTM. When things looked lost he kept us sturdy at the back and he started the move that we scored from, yet another great performance from our best CB this season.

First penalty giving against Barcelona was odd, wasn't his arm infront of his chest?
Second was also questionable i saw a push but seemed abit exaggerated
who knows, great goal by messi though, fantastic team work and dribble, did anyone else see Thiago's rainbow flick?

I think first penalty was way too soft. That was not a good call. So the second penalty evens things out.

First penalty wasnt one either imo for the record.

Levantes was a 100% penalty, the position of the hand does not matter at all,and I also thought that our penalty was a penalty, maybe soft but still a penalty...