Barca -0 , Chelsea - 1

A brilliant counter attacking goal at the very end of the first half is standing strong between Barcelona and the Champions League final in Munich after Chelsea secured a 1-0 victory at Stamford Bridge tonight. It was kind of a harsh and unlucky night with players wasting gilt edged chances, hitting the post on a couple of occasion and on all other occasion the Chelsea defense standing strong. For Chelsea this would feel like a revnge for the exit at Barca in 2009, but for Barca we still have a chance to go through provided we lift our games at Camp Nou next Tuesday. It was that kind of a day where you see Cesc Fabregas missing two chances, Sanchez another and hitting the bar once and on the very end of the night we struck the post from a Pedro shot. Guardiola srarted with Puyol and Mascherano in the centre of defense with Alves and Adriano playing the full back roles respectively. The rest of the line-up was as expected. Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets fromed the midfield. Sanchez, Messi and Cesc Fabregas formed the attacking trio.

champions league 2012

We had a big scare in the third minute when a long kick from Peter Cech put Drogba onside. luckily for us his first touch was really bad. In the 7th minute Drogba did really well to put him through with a great move, butr Puyol was on hand to cut the danger. In the 9th minute Iniesta played a lobbed ball putting Sanchez through on goal, but unluckily Sanchez's brilliant lob struck the bar with Cech well beaten. In the 17th minute we upped the tempo with Messi dancing into the box before cutting the ball back to Iniesta, Iniesta's shot was saved by Cech but the rebound fell pretty well to Cesc who made a mess of that chance. Chelsea was troubling us with every aerial delivery into the box. In the 26th minute Fabregas forced a good save from Cech from a very tight angle. In the 28th minute Sanchez sent in a cross from the right which was met by a good header by Messi in the box, but it was a bit close to Cech. In the 43rd minute Messi robbed a ball off Mikel and set off on a great run, he then played Cesc on but his chip over Cech was cleared off the line by Cole. In the 2nd minute of injury time against the run of play Drogba put Chelsea 1-0 ahead with abrilliant counter after Messi gave the ball away in the midfield. We were pretty unlucky to conceded so late in the first half after dominating the first half like anything.

In the 51st minute Adriano got past two defenders and tried to curl the ball to far corner, but Cech was able to punch it away. In the 57th minute Fabregas lifted a ball over the defense putting Sanchez through but Cole did well to deny him. In the 66th minute Messi danced into the box but Meireiles did well to deflect his shot for a corner. In the 67th minute Guardiola brought in Pedro for Sanchez. In the 70th minute Xavi saw his free kick from just outside the box going high over the bar. In the 78th minute Cesc Fabregas was taken off for Thiago. In the 87th minute Cuenca came in for Xavi. In the 87th minute Puyol header from a Messi free kick just missed the far post with Cech completely beaten. In the dying momet of the game Adriano hit the post and then the rebound fell to Busquest who blasted high infront of an open goal. That explained the night we had.

I know many Barca fans would term this as a lucky victory for Chelsea, but they did really their job well. They lined up with a startegy which ideally was based on Drogba using his physical strength to start an attack. And they did create problem for us. But the goal unfortunately came from a Barca mistake that too from Messi, who gave the ball away in midfield catching entire defense off-guard. It never should have mattered as we created enough chances to go atleast two goals up, but the problem was we never took anyone of that. Now it's going to be a herculean task as we not only have to over turn the score-line at Camp Nou, also have to lift ourselves from this defeat for the Clasico encounter on saturday.

FC Barcelona surrenders League Title; FC Barcelona - 1, Real Madrid - 2

Real Madrid well and truly have sealed the La Liga title of 2011-12 season with a 2-1 victory at the Camp Nou. Khedira and Ronaldo scored for the away side taking them 7 points clear of the defending Champions. It was the first victory of Real Madrid under Mourinho against FC Barcelona in the league, incidently it was the first victory for Mourinho at the Camp Nou. What a time for that to happen. A first half goal from Khedira put Real Madrid in the pole position but Sanchez equalised within a minute of his introduction but within two minutes Ronaldo put Madrid back in front. And we failed to respond to such a set back.

fc barcelona vs real madrid live

Guardiola went once again went with the same defense which lined up against Chelsea - Alves, Mascherano, Puyol and Adriano. The midfield had Xavi, Busquets and Thiago. Once again Iniesta was used in the flanks along with Tello and Messi in the middle. Real Madrid meanwhile wnet with Casillas, Arbeloa, Pepe, Ramos, Coentrao, Alonso, Khedira, Ronaldo, Ozil, Di Maria and Benzema.
We started with a kind of 3-4-3 formation with Alves playing on the wings than as full back. In the 4th minute Cristiano Ronaldo rose above to meet a Ozil header, but Valdes did well to tip it over. In the 6th minute Alves stole the ball off Ramos and set on straight on goal but Casillas came early off his line to deny the Brazilian. In the 17th minute a terrible error by Valdes gave Real Madrid the lead. Valdes fails to deal with a Real madrid corner, Carles Puyol also didn't clear it giving Khedira the chance to score giving Real Madrid 1-0 advantage. In the 20th minute Tello flashed a shot from outside the box wide off the near post. In the 27th minute Meesi put in Xavi ahead on goal but Casillas made a great save to deny Xavi there. We had all the possession in the first half but we were never able to create any good move. Too many players were having an off day with control and had been a bit complacent at crucial time. It was surprising to see that we didn't have a signle shot on target in the first half. In the 52nd minute Tello slashed a shot wide and high from an almost impossible angle. In the 54th minute Thiago played Tello on goal with a brilliant through ball but Tello balsted high and over. That was a one hell of a miss. In the 68th minute Xavi Hernandez long range strike went wide of the goal. That was the last action Xavi saw as he was replaced by Alexis immediately. In the 70th minute Sanchez equalised after an almighty scramble in the Real madrid box. The move started with Messi making a brilliant run and slipping the ball to Iniesta, who reverse flicked the ball to Tello, who shot straight at Casillas, but luckily for us the rebound to Alexis who scored in his second attempt. In the 73rd minute Real madrid went straight into a 2-1 lead from a brilliant counter attack which saw Ronaldo easily rounding off Valdes. Guardiola had to react and brought in Pedro in place of Adriano. In the 81st minute Guardiola brought in Cesc for Tello. We had plenty of possession, even then this was a just victory for Real Madrid. The Chelsea defeat was pretty unlucky as we created a number of chances. But this one we were so poor in our build up play. The reason was very simple we had only one goal scoring threat in the line up -Lionel Messi. So every bulid up simply circulated in the middle. Guardiola went with a 3-4-3 formation which was pretty effective but the mistake he did was that he should have started with Pedro instead of Alves. Whenever used as a pure winger Alves have been very crappy but still Guardiola continues with his experience. Pedro would have given Barca another outlet in the box and the build up would have seriously improved. The heart of the midfield - Iniesta and Xavi were really poor interms of creating chances. Once again that could be due to teh factor I mentioned earlier. Now with a seven point opened it's essentially good bye to La Liga. If we don't stop being so sloppy we could see another title elude us on Tuesday. It's full steam ahead to the Champions League now.