Football, perhaps more so than any other sport, has a amusing way of producing the unexpected.
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The 27-year-old kept the score to just 2-0 in Belarus and also managed to restrict Barcelona with a couple of important close-range saves at the Camp Nou. He hit a volley against Getafe and another against BATE this evening that suggested he is technically everything you’d expect from a La Masia graduate but while the actual contact was hard, that neither were even on target speaks volumes for how these past few weeks have been for both forwards.
Barcelona opted to move the ball around after their third strike and they continued like that until the final whistle, closing things out on their way to a relatively easy 3-0 win.
Barcelona coach Luis Enrique left Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba on the bench and instead started Thomas Vermaelen, giving the Belgian defender his Barca Champions League debut.
As has happened so often since Barca talisman Lionel Messi was injured in late September, the team’s other two attacking superstars did the damage.
Szczesny had more trouble in Saturday’s 1-0 loss to Inter Milan, failing to react quickly enough to a long shot from Gary Medel and thus surrendering the Serie A lead.
The hosts nearly found a third goal moments later, as Chernik denied Neymar with an impressive save, before Marc Bartra headed over the bar from an inviting Neymar cross. After losing their first two matches in Group F, the Gunners revived their hopes of reaching the last 16 with a rousing 2-0 win over the Germans last time out.
And the roles were reversed seven minutes from time as this time Suarez bore down on goal before unselfishly rolling the ball across the area for Neymar to tap home his 11th goal of the season.
“Half the goal belongs to Suarez”. In the end, it was a very comfortable three points for the Spanish giants. The sides drew 4-4 in Germany in a remarkable game a fortnight ago but Roma, who were knocked off the top of Serie A after losing 1-0 to Inter at the weekend, have won only one of their last eight European home games.
Barca will still want their main man back for the looming La Liga’Clasico’at Real Madrid if possible, but his fellow South Americans have stepped up well.
The rest of the game nearly looked like an open training for Barcelona as they were in complete cruise control of the game, while BATE looked defeated and out of ideas. The visitors had a strong shout for a penalty early in the second period, however, when Stasevich went down under pressure from Adriano.
“The priority is not that he is ready for a specific game but that he recovers properly”.
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Neymar: The Brazilian is having a wonderful season for Barcelona and he continued that form against BATE.
