FCB taken on Malaga "City" in the penultimate match of week 19 of the Spanish league. Barça have yet another record in sights in that if they win, their 52 points would be a record for the end of the first half of the season. Just think about it for a moment - it would be 17 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat with over 57 goals scored. And then carrying on to see if they could beat last season's title-winning total of 99 points.
Tonight it's a continuation of the Pep v Pellegrini saga. The Chilean coach earned his spurs at Villareal before taking the poisoned chalice that is the position of Real Madrid manager. He never managed a win over Pep, but is widely recognised as being both a good manager and a jolly decent chap. And he did lead Villareal to victory over FCB in the pre-Pep era. When will the post-Pep era begin? Guardiola still to sign a new contract although noone really thinks that's not going to happen.
FC Barcelona have a full aquad to choose from minus the soon to depart Milito who may well get to know his future teammates today as Malga is his most likely destination. I wonder which team he will be secretly supporting this evening? Expect to see more of Afellay after getting less than 15 minutes in each of the last 3 games. Something that will please almost everyone in the FCB squad.
Malaga are signing a player a day during the transfer window in their efforts to stay up. Just as Zaragoza did last winter - surely there is something inherently unfair in buying over half a new team midway through the season? They have so far picked up Sergio Asenjo (fed up with David De Gea at ATM), the wonderfully named Nacho Camacho (also ATM), Demichelis (B. Munich), Enzo Maresca (ex-Sevilla) and Julio "the beast" Cesar Baptista (yes the man who scored the winner in Real Madrid's 1-0 win at the Camp Nou in 2007).
If you want beauty we have Andres Iniesta - I wonder if Michael Laudrup smiled when he saw Andres' pass to Keita at the end of the 5-0 hammering of Betis? If ever you needed proof that Andres grew up watching the Great Dane surely that wonderful moment of spatial intelligence was it. For beauty on the Malaga team watch out for the left foot of Duda.
Prediction:
FCB 3-1 Malaga
Tonight it's a continuation of the Pep v Pellegrini saga. The Chilean coach earned his spurs at Villareal before taking the poisoned chalice that is the position of Real Madrid manager. He never managed a win over Pep, but is widely recognised as being both a good manager and a jolly decent chap. And he did lead Villareal to victory over FCB in the pre-Pep era. When will the post-Pep era begin? Guardiola still to sign a new contract although noone really thinks that's not going to happen.
FC Barcelona have a full aquad to choose from minus the soon to depart Milito who may well get to know his future teammates today as Malga is his most likely destination. I wonder which team he will be secretly supporting this evening? Expect to see more of Afellay after getting less than 15 minutes in each of the last 3 games. Something that will please almost everyone in the FCB squad.
Malaga are signing a player a day during the transfer window in their efforts to stay up. Just as Zaragoza did last winter - surely there is something inherently unfair in buying over half a new team midway through the season? They have so far picked up Sergio Asenjo (fed up with David De Gea at ATM), the wonderfully named Nacho Camacho (also ATM), Demichelis (B. Munich), Enzo Maresca (ex-Sevilla) and Julio "the beast" Cesar Baptista (yes the man who scored the winner in Real Madrid's 1-0 win at the Camp Nou in 2007).
If you want beauty we have Andres Iniesta - I wonder if Michael Laudrup smiled when he saw Andres' pass to Keita at the end of the 5-0 hammering of Betis? If ever you needed proof that Andres grew up watching the Great Dane surely that wonderful moment of spatial intelligence was it. For beauty on the Malaga team watch out for the left foot of Duda.
Prediction:
FCB 3-1 Malaga
No comments:
Post a Comment