It was Xavi who came to Barca’s rescue last night at the Camp Nou to rescue his team and earn 3 points for his club.
The game started as expected with Barca pushing forward from the beginning but the first real chance fell to Granada with just 9 minutes on the clock with a shot from Antonio Floro Flores that didn’t give keeper Victor Valdés any problems.
Barca pushed upfield as per usual but were kept at deadlock by a very well organized Granada defense. The first half finished as it started with a nil nil scoreline.
The second half started with Barca trying to find open spaces and trying to open up Granada. The Andalusian team had so many players back it just made life really difficult for the Catalans. Messi was sporadic in the first half and didn’t get too much of a look-in but made amends for his absence in the second.
Messi was all over the place and at one point was seen arguing with David Villa. Apparently Messi thought he was in a better position than Villa and stated his case to the ex Valencia player. Villa did look like scoring in the match until he was replaced by Pedro which put that idea to rest.
Xavi came on for Thiago and started to control things in the midfield and Barca started to pass the ball about more freely and started to find those open spaces.
It was getting late in the game and it was looking like a draw which would have done Granada a favor. It was not to be though as Xavi hit the target with a superb strike with the outside of his right boot. He gave Toño no chance and Barca were one up.
This opened the game up even more and in the dying moments of added time, Messi cut loose and blasted a shot across the area which found Gómez who diverted the ball into his own net.
Hard lines for Granada as they showed a pugnacious attitude and defended valiantly. This just goes to prove that you cannot give Barca an inch and they will make you pay for any mistakes and missed chances. This is exactly what happened in last night’s game at the Camp Nou and Granada were made to pay the price for their errors.
This gives Barca another 3 more points to add to their tally of 15 points in 5 games – awesome!
