Sorry it’s a tad late this week, this is the first chance I have had to sit down and get organized. The Barca fans are a little down at the moment, and given our ambitions in the CL expecting a fight from City tonight. They had better be right! Oh, and apparently its not sold out form the home fans
Team Selection
-------------------Valdes------------------
---Alves---Pique---Mascherano---Alba(?)---
---------Xavi-----Busquets---Cesc---------
--------Alexis------Messi-----Iniesta(?)----
My Favourite
Both teams with a point to prove. Barca can't hold on to a lead even if they wanted and City has no options but to attack.
Should be a fun game to watch
And the rest…
2nd leg is here. Both teams coming from defeats. Barça has the advantage of winning the away leg by 2 goals to nil, but I think it's still open. If City scores an early goal, things could get tricky
And I hope the advantage won't make complacency hit our players again. This match could make or break the rest of the season.
Is Alba fit and is Iniesta ready to play? I really liked Tata's formation at the Etihad, I feel we should stick to our guns and replicate it, especially now that we don't have to worry about Demichelis terrorizing our attack, I put Alexis in just because I like him but Pedro would be fine as well. Pique and Mascherano bossed Negredo, he looked useless vs. Wigan today, and Aguero hasn't gotten back to his tip-top best either, we will need to watch out for him though. I am a bit worried about Xavi, he did play full 90 against Almeria and Valladolid both, hopefully he doesn't produce a tired, listless performance and is fresh enough to play, might be worth thinking about playing Song if that's not the case. Neymar is in a bit of a rut at the moment, better to let him come off the bench and hopefully have the same impact as he did at the Etihad, no need to put lots of pressure by starting him
As long as we don't have a terrible start, we should be able to see this through
If the players still keep their weak and indifferent attitude like in recent Liga matches, Man City will beat us to death. They are ten times stronger than Valladolid.
Barca to lose 2-0 and go to penos with man city. Neymar and masch to miss their penos. Man city to the QFs barca to make amends in the summer and make another treble winning team
I need to see a respectful reaction from the players. And the fans need to make the Camp Nou look like hell. City don't have any player with CL experience but Yaya. And we must exploit that. I don't care about the XI, I just want the players to react with the best possible way. Puyol need to set them down before the game
PRIDE is the keyword. Do these players at least have some pride left? If they don't we could suffer yet another defeat and possible exitand do his magic.
Everyone know that the match can go anywhere.With aguero back they can pull off the victory.Just get the win
somehow
The good omen is that City has not been looking too good recently. Barca has had some very good games in 2014, but a higher proportion of bad games than in any stretch for the last several years. City is not ready for this level in the CL, I think the Barca experience with this level of pressure will prove the difference. Even if City gets some goals, Barca will be able to score on them, I see this one 3-2, Barca goes through 5-2 on aggregate.
Seems to be a real lack of interest here on this thread too. Alot of people still arent over the weekend defeat
I have a bad feeling
I was so excited for the first leg....But for this second leg I'm finding it hard to get in the mood.
I have faith in the players but none in Tata
This will be a tough game for us. Im expecting City to fight like hell, and if we dont do the same it could easily be our end. I hope to see jordi alba back in our first team, this guy is just phenomenal, very underrated.
If Pellegrini is smart enough, he must know that every time Barca lost this season, it wasn't by parking the bus and countering
We must score first.
