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After losing last week to Atletico Madrid, Barça bounced back tonight with a comfortable 4-0 win over Racing Santander. An early goal from Andres Iniesta put us on the road to victory and two direct free kicks from Thierry Henry and Rafa Marquez put the result beyond doubt before half time. The second half was a stroll in the park with very little incident until substitute Thiago Alcantara put the icing on the cake with his first goal for the club near the end.
There was another blow for us as Zlatan Ibrahimovic was left out as a precaution with an ankle injury which meant Bojan Krkic started the game at centre forward. Toure Yaya returned in midfield after his injury and there was also a place for Thierry Henry on the left wing. The game began well for us and in the seventh minute Rafa Marquez was allowed to bring the ball out towards the halfway line, he then sent a long ball forward towards Henry moving in from the left, Racing’s defender Crespo followed Henry but forgot to watch the ball which ran on for Iniesta who beat Racing’s keeper Coltorti to the ball and slotted it home. We continued to push forward and three minutes later Henry played the ball back to Bojan but his shot went well wide. A minute later Messi exchanged passes with Busquets before firing in a powerful shot that Coltorti tipped over.
There was little to be seen from Racing while Marquez had a header over and Maxwell had a shot saved, then in the 22nd minute Messi sent a pass out to the left to Bojan who cut inside but Coltorti turned his shot around the post. The first danger from Racing came in the 24th minute when a free kick was headed back across goal but Valdés was alert to intercept. Then in the 28th minute Busquets won a free kick on the edge of the box, Henry took the kick and despite not hitting the ball particularly well the Racing wall opened to leave a hole and the ball went through and found the corner of the net. Five minutes later Iniesta’s attempt to play the ball forward was stopped by Toni Moral’s hand and the ref awarded another free kick this time about five yards further out, Marquez stepped up and hit a beautiful curler that went in off the post.
We then had our only dodgy spell of the game which lasted for about five minutes, Valdés dropped a cross which led to the ball ending up in our net but the goal was disallowed for a clear offside from Xisco. Gerard Piqué then risked a card for a lunge similar to the one that saw him sent off two weeks ago, and then Marquez was fortunate to only see a yellow for an ugly tackle on Canales. It seemed we wanted to complicate things and just before half time Henrique had Racing’s best chance but he headed Canales’s free kick wide. At the other end Bojan had a chance after Messi’s past but his shot went just wide.
With the important game at Stuttgart on Tuesday it was to be expected that we would drop the rhythm in the second half as we just looked to control things. It wasn’t until the 61st minute that we had another attempt on goal but Iniesta’s curler was easily saved. Jeffren came on at right back in place of Puyol who received a whack on the head, but it wasn’t until Thiago came on with 15 minutes to go that we started to put a bit of life back in the game. In the 83rd minute Thiago had an excellent run to set up Messi but Messi’s shot was straight at the keeper. Then a minute later Messi worked some magic on the by-line before pulling the ball back to Thiago who scored with the help of a deflection off Henrique.
This was possibly the easiest game of the season so far but the whole team were at a good level and we kept things simple. The two defensive mistakes from Racing for the first two goals helped a great deal and meant we could reserve a bit for the Champions League. It was good to see Rafa Marquez looking much better at the back and the other most positive point was the goalscorers: Henry definitely needed a goal and he seemed to be really enjoying the game, while Iniesta hadn’t scored since his famous goal at Stamford Bridge. Another point of note is that we finished the game with no less than nine homegrown players on the pitch. What other big team in Europe could boast such a fact? The victory was much needed both for our challenge for La Liga and also to put us in the right mood for this week’s trip to Germany.
Barça: Valdés 6; Puyol 6.5 (Jeffren m68, 6.5), Marquez 7.5, Piqué 7, Maxwell 6.5; Busquets 7, Toure 7 (Thiago m77, 7), Iniesta 7.5; Messi 6.5, Bojan 6.5, Henry 7 (Pedro m76, 6).
Goals: m7 Iniesta 1-0, m29 Henry 2-0, m34 Marquez 3-0, m84 Thiago 4-0.
Barça yellow cards: m38 Marquez, m43 Toure, m54 Henry.
Attendance: 75,935