BARCELONA - Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman said he was even more disappointed by his side being held to a 1-1 draw at home to Cádiz in LaLiga on Sunday than after last week's 4-1 home drubbing by Paris St Germain.
Barça led thanks to Lionel Messi's 32nd-minute penalty but they failed to kill their opponents off and Álex Fernández leveled in the 89th minute, ending a run of seven straight league wins for the Catalans.
No empezó mal el Barcelona. Los catalanes abrían los octavos de final de la Champions League 2020-21 ante el PSG y a los 26 minutos, Lionel Messi convertía de penal el 1-0 sobre los franceses.
Los lanzamientos desde los doce pasos son un punto débil del argentino, pero ante Keylor Navas, su disparo fue de manual.
Lionel Messi scores his 28th goal in 27 round of 16 games. No one has scored more goals in this stage of the knockouts pic.twitter.com/A9tKcWlzNV
During a recent interview for Ligue 1 Uber Eats and beIN SPORTS North America, current Monaco midfielder Cesc Fàbregas was given the difficult task of assembling his ultimate footballer from the teammates he’s had, including left foot, right foot, headers, stamina, dribbling, pace, etc.
Lionel Messi equaled former teammate Xavi’s Barcelona record of 505 LaLiga appearances on Saturday against Alavés. He marked the record by scoring two worldies, two more examples that he has the greatest left foot in the history of the game.
Barcelona beat Alavés 5-1, both Messi and Francisco Trincão netting twice to bring the Blaugrana into second place, ahead of Real Madrid on goal differences. Messi was the star man in the landmark match.
Sevilla FC, anyone? Julen Lopetegui’s side is the hottest commodity in Europe not named Manchester City following Wednesday’s 2-0 win over Barcelona in the first leg of their Copa del Rey semifinal matchup.
That’s now eight straight wins in all competitions for Sevilla (four in LaLiga and four in the Copa), results that’ve pushed the side to fourth in the league (just one point behind Barça) and the cusp of the Copa final.
He already said it himself a few weeks ago: Lionel Messi will make a decision on his future once the 2020-21 season is over. In the meantime, Barcelona is still dreaming of retaining him once the new president of the club is known after the March elections.
No hay que estar dentro de la cabeza de Lionel Messi para saber que el partido contra el Athletic Bilbao iba ser más extraño de lo normal. Primero, el argentino volvía de una suspensión de dos encuentros después de ser expulsado ante el mismo equipo vasco en la final de la Supercopa de España. Luego, la atención sobre su figura tendría un foco diferente tras la portada del diario “El Mundo”, el cual filtró el astronómico contrato que tiene el “10” con el Barcelona: 555.237.619 euros (673.919.105 dólares) por cuatro temporadas. O sea, $167 millones al año.
Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann fired Barcelona to a 2-1 win at home to Athletic Bilbao in LaLiga on Sunday, avenging their recent defeat to the Basque side in the Spanish Super Cup final.
Messi curled in a free kick after 20 minutes for his 650th Barça goal on the day the club pledged to sue Spanish newspaper El Mundo for publishing the full details of the Argentine's contract.
Just when you thought Barcelona had turned the corner with four straight league wins and a place in the quarterfinals of the Copa del Rey, here comes that nasty debt of $1.42 billion and the ugly realization that the greatest footballer of all-time is headed out the back door again! (Along with another Luis Suárez brace for Atlético.)
Cada vez que alguien hace un 11 ideal de la temporada, de la década o de la historia deja abierta la puerta de la polémica. ¿Por qué este jugador y no este otro? es la discusión típica. Pero pese a las diferencias, las elecciones suelen ser razonables. Caso distinto, sorpresivamente, es el equipo de la década de la Conmebol que la Federación Internacional de Historia y Estadística de Fútbol (IFFHS) publicó hace unos días. Hay tantas omisiones que uno no puede dejar de pensar que la persona que lo hizo tiene menos fútbol que la revista Vogue.