Champions League: FC Barcelona - APOEL Nicosia 1-0

[Blaugrana Man]

I thought we played well today. This game was never going to be a real challenge, why expend real energy?

We have so much to play for this season, and we're going for all of it. Do what is necessary in these sort of games just to get a win.

We did exactly that. We never looked like conceding, we had more than a few chances to score some goals, and we avoided injuries.

Complaining about these types of wins is stupid.

 

[blaugrana1987]

Horrible, but eh...we got 3 points! I just want to point out rotations...These kind of rotations are done when you are FIRST and game is totally UNIMPORTANT. Not at beggining of season, and you don't replace half of team with youngsters. Hopefully Lucho understands that now...

 

[BarcaGirl]

Absolute crap game but ...

..I get it, Lucho already made it clear he didn’t care about this game. He started youngsters, Busquets and Masche were not even on the bench. But you know ...it would be great to have some fun too

Also I missed Rakitic tonight

 

[El_e8]

Hope Lucho and everyone else learned their lesson today.

 

[anguy]

Xavi and Roberto both played like cowards. Absolutely no effort to create something, to move the ball forward, just don't screw it up, play it safe. I miss Rakitic already... Messi was probably the worst man of the match, he had crazy amount of turnovers and blocked shots. Munir average, Neymar probably the best of front 3, but still average. Samper played well, Iniesta too, defense was mostly OK and team generally pressed hard and won a lot of balls. Ter Stegen MoM, because of that one save at the end.

 

[Darko]

That was close, we could have easily dropped points. Again vulnerable to counter attacks, but that's the price of pressing, if they manage to outplay the few players pressing the men on the ball they have tons of space in behind. Only positives were Samper and Bartra, and well Ter Stegen. Gonna just hope that it's just a bad game and isolated incident.

 

[blaugrana1987]

Absolute crap game but ...

..I get it, Lucho already made it clear he didn’t care about this game. He started youngsters, Busquets and Masche were not even on the bench. But you know ...it would be great to have some fun too

Also I missed Rakitic tonight

Thats VERY big problem IMO. You just don't put BOTH of your DMs on stands, just screams disrespect. We have to respect every team on CL. Good thing is

A) We got 3 points and we are first (be sure PSG and Ajax wont have easy time with APOEL)
B) We still didn't concel goal even though Mathieu didn't play. Bartra and Pique def don't look as good
C) Half of team is rested

 

[anguy]

Horrible, but eh...we got 3 points! I just want to point out rotations...These kind of rotations are done when you are FIRST and game is totally UNIMPORTANT. Not at beggining of season, and you don't replace half of team with youngsters. Hopefully Lucho understands that now...

Sorry, but this was Apoel at home, the best game to test rookies, besides early Copa. Besides vets like Messi and Xavi played poorly too.

 

[BarcaVillain]

Sensible performance. Thought Samper was excellent again, as was Sandro when he came on, adding a bit more purpose to the attack. I do think the senior players were a bit of a let down tonight, so you have to be reasonably happy with the result. The ends justify the means with games coming every few days, so it was ideal to rest players like Rakitic, Busquets and Mathieu for this game.

 

[instinct]

Messi worst man of the match? Fuck this forum

 

[anguy]

Thats VERY big problem IMO. You just don't put BOTH of your DMs on stands, just screams disrespect. We have to respect every team on CL.

DM with Samper wasn't problem. He played well. At least something positive.

 

[DonAK]

Barca Manager lets youngsters play and rotates the lineup against a what should be a relatively easy opponent = Complain

Barca Manager keep playing his best lineup or only rotates a player or two = Complain

Complain, complain, complain. It's the first match. We won. Still a lot of matches to be played, better performances to come. Go to sleep and look forward to the next game.

Wasn't a good performance at all, but if you expect Barcelona to destroy every opponent every single match then you're terribly naive.

 

[reDIOS10]

He actually ran more only second to Alves so i get why he would be tired.

 

[xavi_the_Boss]

Well i´m happy that Samper got to Play a full CL match and we rested some players.

 

[Icarium]

Who would have thought we would miss Rakitic this much before the start of the season. Rafinha has to step up. Iniesta and Rakitic is fine but we need more depth. Roberto won't count and xavi should raise his game. I would not jump to many conclusions because we played very few from our starting lineup. Messi did not do great that is the main reason we looked boring imo. If he had a great game it would have been a rout. His bad game can be blamed on incompetent mid. Seriously why did Roberto get a contract extension? and i hope this is the maximum xavi offers. He was much better last season which is considered to be very bad season.