La Liga Lowdown, Jornada 24: Complications at Camp Nou but Barcelona still top

Barcelona were given another tough game by Athletic Bilbao this weekend, but overcame the Basques to remain five points clear of nearest rivals Real Madrid. Pep Guardiola’s team managed to recover well after their confidence-crushing defeat against Arsenal in the Champions League last week.

It was by no means vintage Barça; Athletic is always a tricky game, and coach Joaquín Caparrós set up to make it even harder, switching back to 4-2-3-1 and leaving out in-form striker Gaizka Toquero for an extra midfielder. But Barça had their own changes to make, and it seemed to disrupt them somewhat; something didn’t look quite right. Hardly a great shock though. Injuries to regular starters Carles Puyol and Víctor Valdés meant that José Manuel Pinto and Javier Mascherano were drafted in as replacements.

Guardiola set up with a strange formation, using Sergio Busquets as one of three defenders, with Dani Alves again masquerading as a full-back down the right hand side. And once again the Brazilian was an effective outlet for Barça, and in particular for the trademark Xavi diagonal pass. It was those two who linked up for the first goal – a goal surrounded by controversy.

Alves appeared to be slightly offside as Xavi chipped the ball through to him, but the referee allowed play to go on. Alves was then able to find David Villa with a cross, and he arrived into the box to mark his 16^th league goal of the season – already the same amount that Zlatan Ibrahimovic managed in one full season at the club.

Barça held their lead until just after half-time - Eric Abidal’s wayward backpass to Busquets fell to Fernando Llorente, who was brough down in the area by the makeshift defender. Andoni Iraola stepped up and calmly put his penalty beyond the goalkeeper to make it 1-1.

For once, things weren’t really going Barça’s way. As expected Athletic were giving them a hard time, and they were competing very well. Another contentious moment came as Gerard Piqué was caught on the ball and resorted to hauling his opponent to the ground. With many Athletic fans calling for him to be sent off, Piqué only received a yellow. Barça’s defence was looking shaky though, and Piqué especially was having an uncharacteristic off-day.

Things eventually improved when Guardiola re-shuffled his team, bringing on Maxwell and moving Busquets back into midfield. Andrés Iniesta and Leo Messi started to really come to life throughout the second-half, but again it was the Xavi-Alves combination that created the winning goal just over ten minutes from time. Xavi swept another fine ball out to the right, and Alves was on hand to slide the ball across for Messi to put it beyond Gorka Iraizoz.

It finished 2-1, and Barça had done well come away with three points. As Piqué put it: “Winning games like these wins you the league.”

The controversy over Barça’s first goal continued in today’s papers, as Madrid-based AS printed an image of the first goal, showing Alves in an offside position. Nothing too out of the ordinary there, right? Not quite. Looking closer at the image, one of Athletic’s defenders had been deleted out of the picture in an attempt to make it look like Alves was in fact offside. Of course, almost everyone noticed immediately and AS were left looking a little silly.

Elsewhere, title rivals Real Madrid had a stroll in the Bernabéu against Levante. Both Xabi Alonso and Mesut Özil were rested as Mou’s men won comfortably 2-0 in a game which probably was as pointless as you could have imagined beforehand. Even Karim Benzema scored. Ángel di María was especially good, though, bamboozling Levante defenders all night with his pace and trickery.

As Levante coach Luis García put it: “They are far superior to us. When they attack, it’s like a stampede.”

Still, despite the weekend’s contrasting circumstance, Madrid stay five points behind Barça at the top of La Liga with 14 games left to play.

Lower Down the Lowdown

• Undoubtedly the best moment of the weekend came at the Estadio del Mediterráneo, in the game between Almería and Deportivo. Almería were leading 1-0 thanks to Pablo Piatti’s sublime strike, all the way up until the 95^th minute when the most unexpected occurred – Depor goalkeeper Dani Aranzubia charged forward to score his first ever goal. It was also the first time a goalkeeper has ever scored from open play in La Liga history. “Nobody sent me up, it was my own idea,” he said after the game. “I’ve never had this feeling…the feeling of scoring is awesome.”
• New Osasuna coach José Luis Mendilibar couldn’t have wished for a better debut, as his side hammered Espanyol 4-0 at the Reyno de Navarra. They looked a much better side under the new man, especially going forward, but some of the visitors’ defending was woeful. Espanyol’s strength at the back was a big positive in the first half of the season, but ever since they sold two of their first team defenders, they’ve looked uncertain at the back (somewhat understandably). Their hopes of qualifying for European competition are slowly slipping away by the week.
• Another new coach who has started well is Marcelino at Racing. Since his arrival back at the club, the Cantabrians have picked up maximum points and have risen away from relegation danger. Their latest win came against Getafe on Sunday, where a Pablo Pinillos penalty was enough to secure the win in a particularly dire game. That won’t bother new owner Ali Sayed too much at the moment though, and his decision to immediately fire Miguel Ángel Portugal for Marcelino should prove to be a wise one.
• After a recent spell of indifferent form and bad luck, Sevilla got back to winning ways with a 1-0 victory at home to Hércules. The away team put up a good fight, but Sevilla defended well. January signing Ivan Rakitic scored his first goal for the club as the Andalusians moved up into 7^th place. Coach Gregorio Manzano said that he was satisfied with the result, and that his team were “more collective in defence and more together”.

Results

Real Madrid 2-0 Levante, Zaragoza 0-1 Atlético, Valencia 0-0 Sporting, Almería 1-1 Deportivo, Villarreal 1-1 Málaga, Sevilla 1-0 Hércules, Getafe 0-1 Racing, Osasuna 4-0 Espanyol, Barcelona 2-1 Athletic.

Goal of the Week

Pablo Piatti (Almería 1-1 Deportivo)

(pic via Coach_J on Flickr)

Almeria, Dani Alves, Deportivo la Coruña, Espanyol, FC Barcelona, Lionel Messi, Osasuna, Racing Santander, Real Madrid, Sevilla, Spanish Primera Division, Xavi