Real Madrid’s third home league defeat of the campaign leaves them level on points with Barcelona, but 10 points adrift of leaders AtléticoRonald Koeman didn’t intend to speak for both of them and plenty thought he shouldn’t have spoken at all, but as it turned out that’s exactly what he did. It was just after midday on Saturday when the coach said Barcelona “are not in a position to win much” and just before 6pm when Real Madrid showed nor are they.By the following night, the greatest rivals in sport couldn’t be closer: same points, same wins, same draws, same defeats, same goals conceded. But if a battle is building, it’s not for anything that matters much, and the team...
The first red card in his Barcelona career can be seen as the culmination of his club’s decline, and the kicking and barging he has endured for yearsExactly 90 seconds before the act of violence that will earn Lionel Messi his first red card for Barcelona, he’s standing just inside the halfway line, waiting to receive a pass. He’s seen a gap. The sort of gap Messi has seen thousands of times before. Related: Messi sent off as Athletic Bilbao sink Barcelona to win Spanish Super Cup Related: Boardroom turmoil, troubling finances and Messi's influence: why Barcelona are a mess Continue reading...
A blossoming relationship with the skilful young Pedri seems to have renewed the Barcelona forward’s thirst for the gameThe first goal Lionel Messi ever scored for Barcelona was taken off him, so he did it again two minutes later, and kept on doing it for over a decade. It was May 2005 and the 89th minute of the 34th week when Ronaldinho scooped a lovely pass and the 17-year-old wearing No 30 lifted it softly into the net. Related: Lionel Messi says ill feeling from failed Barcelona exit carried into this season Lionel Messi makes HISTORY! Goal No. 644 sees him overtake Pele "Nobody in the history of this wonderful game has ever scored as many goals for the same...
This is the worst position Barça have been after 10 games since 1971 and no team has won La Liga from so far behindRonald Koeman spent much of Saturday night just sitting, staring at his feet, which was probably better than looking at his team. Out on the grass before him they were busy bringing any lingering hope of winning the league to an end six months early and in a way so absurd, so stupidly familiar, as to be almost funny – if you’re not their coach. One down through an eighth-minute own goal from Óscar Mingueza, another one from Pedro Alcalá had just brought them level and offered a way back, when it happened again: the moment that...
A tribute in a Barcelona or Argentina shirt might not have felt right. No one expected a Newell’s one but it worked betterLionel Messi could feel the weight of Diego Maradona’s No 10 on his back. It was the final moment before kick-off in the 917th game of his career, the first without Diego, and Europe’s largest stadium stood virtually empty and entirely silent. At each end of the ground, maternity hospital on one side and cemetery on the other, a picture of Maradona was projected on the screens, in the directors’ box a man held a framed shirt, and on the pitch Barcelona’s and Osasuna’s players gathered around the centre circle where a floral offering was made, four days...