Futbol Club Barcelona fielded its best lineup, Valdes, Alves, Piqué, Puyol, Abidal (as left back, not a center back), Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Pedro and Villa. Sick! Guardiola clearly wanted to start the Champion's League campaign on a good note.
Barcelona's opening salvo was as beautiful as could be. FCB came out, gained possession of the ball and created chances from minute 2. You could tell they were playing loose: Iniesta had a pretty stepover (about minute 4) to avoid a defender and loosing the ball, several minutes later Busquets stunned me with a pretty backheel pass. Barca easily created 5 legitimate opportunities in the first 20 minutes.
Surprisingly, Panathinaikos scored first. In one of the luckiest or most impressive goals I've seen in a while, Cisse quickly passed on a goal kick to a streaking Gouvou. Gouvou easily beat a surprise Valdes and the score was 0-1.
Messi turned the score around before the team of green clovers had a chance to enjoy it. Xavi, 40 yards out, saw Messi make a run on the right and served him a pass so perfect that there was no way he wouldn't beat the goal keeper. His one-touch lifted the ball effortlessly over the goal keepers head to be buried in the back of the net.
10 minutes later it was Villa who found himself alone in front of goal. A corner was headed beautifully across goal and "El Guaje" finished easily at the far post. The route was on.
Messi's goal in the 44th minute was a work of art. A give-and-go from Messi to Xavi to Messi to Pedro and back to Messi, the Argentine made 3 surrounding defenders miss at one point. Awesome!
It wasn't until the 40th minute of the first half that Panathinaikos was even capable of staging a concerted attack. They finally moved 5 players into Barcelona's half of the field in about minute 40 or 41. Their attacked petered out harmlessly.
O Messi devia ser proibido de jogar à bola. Não é um jogador deste mundo.
Deve ser um E.T. tem de ser analisado....
The Messi should be prohibited from playing football. He's not a player from this world.
He must be an E.T. and has to be analysed.
-quote from Zerikardus on YouTube
The second half showed more of the same. Barca had chance after chance and the Green Greeks played Catenaccio with 8 (or 10!) men back at all times.
Shockingly Messi missed a penalty shot. Low, slow and slightly to the right, Tzorvas stopped it easily. Messi made up for it in the 75th minute. A beautiful run toward the left of the goal, he almost put the ball in the back of the net from almost zero angle. Pedro pounced on the loose rebound to make it 4-1.
Messi had served up a football feast and he put the icing on the cake with a beautiful pass to Dani Alves just seconds before the final whistle.
The game was a thing of beauty for any fan of Barca and of football in general. The team from the count's city completely dominated Panathinaikos to the point that the latter looked like a 3rd division team. This after the Greek coach announced that he knew how to beat Barcelona. If I was an opposing coach, I'd keep my mouth shut.
