Spanish La Liga, Round 26: Barcelona Defeats Valencia Via Lionel Messi Goal

Another game, another goal from Lionel Messi. The world’s greatest football playing munchkin now has 27 goals in La Liga, which is incredibly jaw-dropping considering the fact that he plays with a bunch of other people who are also really good at scoring goals. This one wasn’t quite in typical Messi fashion, but they all count the same, right? FC Barcelona lead Valencia CF 1-0 late in the game, and Los Che have a difficult road back to a home point at the Mestalla.

Adriano was the man who assisted on the goal, which was a good way to cap off a generally mediocre performance up until that point. Proving that a switch away from 3-5-2 didn’t mean Adriano had less freedom to get forward, he did well to cut in from the left flank and run at the defense, eventually laying a ball across the top of the penalty area. Messi came from out of absolutely nowhere to run onto the ball and smash it into the back of the net, giving Barcelona a 1-0 lead.

FC Barcelona has returned to their tried and true 4-3-3 formation with Pedro and Lionel Messi flanking David Villa and Sergio Busquets playing a defensive midfield role, signaling a return to order in the universe. The Blaugranas started the match in a 3-5-2 formation that featured Busquets in defense, but with Pedro replacing Javier Mascherano, all things are back to normal for Barcelona. Yet again, Mascherano did not look his best. Amazingly, despite coming to the club in the summer, he is yet to settle in and adapt to Barcelona’s style of play.

Pedro got a nice little rest to start the match, but with only 30 minutes to go, the Spaniard will be able to go full speed the rest of the way. This should present a serious danger for the tired legs of the Valencia defense, who were having enough trouble with Messi as is.

I’ve seriously lost count of the number of shots that have just barely gone wide of the goal in this game. At this point, it has to be half a dozen at a very minimum. Valencia CF and FC Barcelona are playing an entertaining game and creating plenty of scoring chances, despite the fact that the score is still 0-0. It could very easily be 2-2 at this point. Lionel Messi and Pablo Hernandez are the guys doing most of the shooting, as well as most of the barely missing.

It’s not surprising that this game is an entertaining and open one. Both teams are quality sides that have to win games to make sure that they hold onto their positions, but there’s no reason for either side to be cautious. Both teams are much more concerned with actively trying to score than they are with preventing the other team from scoring. Somehow, despite the forward thinking attitudes of both teams, the score stands at 0-0 after an hour of play. Something tells me this one won’t end scoreless. Namely the number of scoring chances that each team is creating.

David Villa’s return to the Mestalla has yet to produce a goal, but Valencia CF and FC Barcelona are still engaged in a pretty entertaining tie. Mostly, this is centered around a couple of things: Barcelona playing with a 3-5-2 formation and Valencia actually keeping possession for a good portion of the half. It feels like the first time in the Guardiola era that a team has been able to keep possession for half of the first half against Barcelona. While that is almost certainly not true, Valencia are still putting in a very good performance.

However, most of their best play came in the opening 20 minutes. Barcelona have been the better side since then, turning an early 33% possession line (!!!) into a slight lead over Valencia in that statistical category. The best opportunity of the game came in the 20th minute when Lionel Messi incredibly failed to finish a series of three chances, having all of his close-range efforts either blocked or saved. He’s had a couple other chances in the match, as has Villa, but neither has been able to convert.

Just in case conspiracy theory nuts needed any more evidence that the world is about to come to an end, FC Barcelona are not playing in their patented 4-3-3 setup due to a variety of factors. Carles Puyol is injured, Pedro needs a rest, and Pep Guardiola knows that he’s won the league after Real Madrid’s most recent slip-up. Additionally, Valencia and their 4-2-3-1 setup had some decent success in the first meeting between these two clubs. Basically, the only things similar between this setup and Barca’s normal setup are: David Villa is a center forward, Xavi is a center midfielder.

Everything else? Quite a bit different. Gerard Pique, Eric Abidal, and Sergio Busquets are your central defenders. This makes room for Javier Mascherano in a defensive midfield role. It’s possible that he just looks like a bad passer in comparison to his teammates, but Mascherano appears to be unable to competently pass a football. Dani Alves and Adriano are the wing backs, and they’re performing that duty pretty well. Messi is a second striker/rover playing off of Villa, which is kind of the role he plays in the 4-3-3 anyway, I guess (Calling Messi a winger has always been a farce).

Without actually knowing David Villa, it’s impossible to know how emotional his return to the Mestalla will be, but it’s likely that the FC Barcelona striker will struggle to think only about the football match that he’s about to play. The former Valencia CF man is a legend at the club, having scored well into the triple digit goals and winning La Liga and the former UEFA Cup with the team. When Barcelona came calling and his cash-strapped former club decided to cash in, the fans could hardly blame Villa for making the move. He’s likely to get a warm reception at the ground where he became an international star, and it will be interesting to see how much that affects his play.

To be completely honest, there’s not a whole lot at stake in this game. Valencia are all but locked into third or fourth position and La Liga, while it would be stunning to see Barcelona relinquish first place after Real Madrid’s stumble on the weekend. Still, it will be worth watching because of the Villa angle alone, and because these are two very good football teams. Though the result of this match is unlikely to have a significant effect on the year-end table, it should still be very entertaining to watch two excellent football teams play some football.