Barcelona Loses to the 19th in La Liga – “Valladolid”

Steven Petrov
The Paw Print

The last year’s Spanish champion, FC Barcelona, put another poor performance in their visit of Valladolid, in the 27th round of the Spanish Primera Division. The “blaugranas” rightfully lost the 3 points after the complete lack of creativity up front, as well as the weak defensive performance throughout the whole game. The winning goal was scored by the 23-year-old midfielder, Fausto Rossi, in the 17th minute, which turned out to be enough to give Real Valladolid a hope of getting out of the danger zone in the bottom of the table and also further away the visiting team from the 1st place. Barcelona’s starting line up was the usual one with Gerard Pique’s returning in the back formation. The only change was that Cesc Fabreguas started over Andres Iniesta, due to Iniesta’s family and personal issues. Lionel Messi, Neymar and Pedro Rodriguez were leading the “blaugranas” attack.
The game started with a relatively slow tempo and Barcelona’s usual long and multi combination plays, which created few chances for Messi, Xavi Hernandez, and Pedro Rodriguez, but none of them were able to finish or even challenge Real Valladolid’s goalkeeper with their shots. The home team played extremely disciplined and stayed compact and dangerous on the counter attack throughout the whole game. The first moment in the game, when the way the game was going to be played was shown, was in the 10th minute, when after a long and slowly built attack by Barcelona, a dispossession gave Real Valladolid a chance to counter attack. The home team managed to reach to Barcelona’s goal, but after a poor shot by Havi Gera, Victor Valdes saved the shot with ease. However, the first and the last goal of the game came in the 17th minute when, after a shot by Havi Gera, there was a deflection, which resulted in the ball ending up at the feet of Fausto Rossi, who finished brilliantly from 12 yards out. This loss was a 3rd one for Barcelona in 2014. The “blaugranas” have missed 14 points ever since the beginning of the year. This gave chance to their all time rivals C.F. Real Madrid to catch up and even surpass them, taking control over La Liga’s 1st place. Real Madrid is currently 3 points ahead of Athletico Madrid and 4 points ahead of FC Barcelona in the Spanish professional league.