Effortless Victory

Was that a semi-final? That is the question many people who followed the Barcelona VS Mallorca game asked after seeing such a low standard encounter. Being a semi-final of what it used to be the second most prestigious tournament in Spain turned out to be a pseudo- friendly match between these two teams. Let’s be honest, the king’s cup is no longer a desired cup for big clubs such as Barcelona; and it’s even worst for teams in relegation zone in the league as they basically care more for staying in the first division which is perfectly understandable. The script was well written. Barça: Top team in his way to winning the league and with hopes for their 3rd European crown. Mallorca on the other hand is battling to stay in first division and winning this cup will do nothing for that cause. The final result? Teams playing their bench players, fans not showing up to the game.

Barça takes a nap and win. Slow game, poor spectacle with only 2 players giving us a reason to care; I’m talking about Bojan and Iniesta. But I cannot blame Barcelona for napping all the game. Mallorca showed no desired, no ambition to do an effort to at least try to win. Add to that the fact that the referee wanted to be the highlight of the game giving up to 4 yellow cards in the first half of which only 1 was a “maybe”. The good news is that Barça, even when napping, was able to pull a nice result. 2-0 with 2 gorgeous goals was the best reward to the die-heard fans that show up for that game. This lead is important because should the score at Ono Stadi, Mallorca will have to score 4 goals to pass. Barcelona as of now has a foot and half of the other in the final

Good news for Pep. Guardiola had more than one reason to worry at the end of last game in Santander when he learned that he had no defenders available for this weekend game against Sporting. Puyol was out due to an injury; Marquez saw red card as well as Pique; and on top of that, Alves saw the 5th yellow card which cause a suspension of one game. Things could be worse for Barça as one of the reasons for their success attacking is their solid defence. Nonetheless, Puyol seems to be recovered sooner than expected and he might be playing this weekend and the committee of sport decision revocked the 5th yellow of Alves after Barcelona presented reasons to backup that petition. This weekend the defence will be better than expected and sporting is not in very good conditions. A tough game it will be but it is hard to see sporting resisting Barça’s arsenal.