It has been a hard week for FC Barcelona. The Catalan giants failed in their fourth attempt to beat Rubin Kazan on Wednesday and ended up with the same result from Sunday's Liga match with Mallorca. Their two opponents played a much different style of football but the result was the same: 1-1.
The same culprit, lack of definition in front of goal, haunted Barcelona both times. Against Rubin they had a lot fewer chances, but they still had more than enough opportunities to go up 2 or 3 - 1.
Against Mallorca, Barcelona played possibly their most beautiful half of football this season in the first half. Open, flowing football gave rise to dangerous opportunity after opportunity. It looked like Barcelona would go up 5-0 but when the half ended it was Barça 1 - Mallorca 1.
Have teams found a way to defeat the most prolific offense of the last two years (an perhaps all time)? I'd lay the blame on Barcelona's players, not the opposing teams.
Barcelona's connection up front has lacked two of its most important components in the past week: Lionel Messi and David Villa. Messi returned late in the game against Rubin and immediately made a difference. Still, after being sidelined for 2 weeks, he lacked the precision that he usually displays. Villa sat out on Sunday as a result of the red card he received against Atletic de Bilbao.
The rest of Barcelona's all-stars don't look so stellar when not playing next to Messi, Villa and Xavi. Bojan had some nice shots but couldn't score when he needed to. Pedro had a beautiful pass to set up Messi's goal, but couldn't find the back of the net when it counted.
Maybe starting Jeffren would have made a difference. Pedro seems to have long invisible stretches before he shows up in a big way. Jeffren may be a little more consistent in the problems he causes opposing defenses.
So, is Barça Broken? I don't think so. I think that once Guardiola gets his starting 11 back and they get a chance to play together, they'll get back to Barcelona's torrid goal-scoring pace.
Here are highlights.
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