Malaga 0-1 Barcelona: The Catalans survive scare at La Roselada

Adriano celebrates after scoring the game’s only goal

We got the three points. The three points are what matter. This is what Tata Martino, the Barcelona players and fans will be saying to themselves after a night of end-to-end football played at La Roselada against a new look Malaga side, with Barca finally clinching the all-important three points, just about. Of course, the three points are truly what count, but Barca can count themselves quite lucky not to have dropped points in only their second league game. Not if you want to win the two-horse race or maybe now a three-horse race in La Liga.

Tiki-taka takes a break?

The first thing which struck me as the match progressed was quite intriguing and slightly refreshing. It slowly dawned upon me and took quite some eye-rubbing to believe it. Barca for reasons whatsoever (prime suspect – Martino) seems to have abandoned tiki-taka. There was still a lot of ground passing involved, however, the number of passes to get the ball into the box were a lot less. With Fabregas involved, who started in place of Messi as the false nine, this became a lot easier, as time and again, he was involved in a lot of penetrating passes in the final-third, no, more like the final-fifth of the pitch, left, right and centre.

Ideally, this should have resulted in a lot of shots, that wasn’t the case as Barca probably created only one genuine clear goal-scoring opportunity in the first half, in the form of a heading chance for Alexis Sanchez after Fabregas nodded it down for him in the area. Malaga’s new coach Bernd Schuster seems to have laid out the defence plan clearly as Malaga tracked and blocked Barca players successfully for 43 minutes. Martino, who was the more active of the two coaches on the touchline, was prepared to give his team a good talk once the whistle blew.

Adriano scores his trademark goal

Last season, Adriano scored six goals for Barcelona, five of them coming in La Liga, good numbers for a full-back. Mostly his efforts were curling shots from the corners of the 18-yard area and this one was no different. In fact it was a little further away. Just when it seemed that for all of Barca’s relentless attacking, they would end half time at a stale mate, Adriano came up with a wonderful shot cutting inside from the right wing, which in hindsight, the Malaga keeper, Caballero, could have handled better, but as I said, it was completely unexpected and so un-Barcelona-esque.

Much of the credit for this gritty first-half performance of Malaga must be given to their midfield engines, Tissone and Fabrice, who put in energetic performances, continuously tracking Barca midfield players.

Fabrice hits the post and Valdes makes a double-save

Normally, teams lose their determination once Barca open the scoring, often allowing them to score again and again. That is why we often see big scores of 4-0 and 5-0. And in the final half-an-hour, teams start getting tired due to the intense pressing that they put in, in the first half. Well, neither was the case with Malaga. The game opened up quite a bit in the second half as the crowd witnessed end-to-end football resulting in Malaga getting their chance to equalise soon enough.

Elisue on the counter-attack, very nicely picked out the run of Santa Cruz and laid a through ball to him. Santa Cruz rode past the challenge of the advancing Valdes, taking the ball to the byline. The angle being too tight, Santa Cruz provided a cut back into the box which found Fabrice, who now had Victor Valdes and a pair of Barca defenders covering the goal. He tried putting the ball in the only empty area of the goal he could immediately find, but unfortunately couldn’t get a proper hold of the ball and ended up hitting it slightly wide to hit the post and rebound.

Cesc Fabregas started in the false 9 role, in the absence of Lionel Messi

That was a big let-off for Barca, so they set out to find a two-goal cushion, to be helped by the introduction of Neymar. Neymar showed a few bright touches and brilliant runs, one of them resulting in a free kick about 20 yards out, from which Neymar forced a good save from the Malaga keeper. As the final few minutes of the match started, Barca defenders started to panic. Vades was forced into action with a double-save from a point blank header and a shot from just inside the area as Barca just managed to hang on to take the 3 points home.

What went wrong and what did not?

Without tiki-taka, Barca at times looked aimless. They got the ball into the box time and again, but couldn’t create as many good chances, as they are habituated to getting goals in a precise way by playing through the centre. Had Fabregas started as a midfielder, this style of play would have suited him perfectly. With the introduction of Neymar, things brightened up a little. Once the season gets fully underway and some big fixtures start taking place, expect Iniesta, Busquets and Fabregas in the midfield and Neymar, Messi and Alexis in the forward line. Expect a lot of fireworks too.

Martino seems to be taking the squad rotation aspect quite seriously. Dropping Alves for Adriano and Busquets for Song indicates that everyone will get their chances and that players’ energy will be conserved in order to play the second-half of the season more effectively. In the end, that seems to have paid off as Adriano scored the winning goal for them.

The next fixture is against Atletico Madrid for the Super Cup clash, who secured a big 5-0 victory over Rayo earlier today. Hopefully Messi will start that match and Barca will be keen to start the season with a trophy under their belt, however low it is on the priority list. The Camp Nou provides a home advantage as good as any in Europe, so Barca should start the game as favourites to clinch the trophy. Right now they are top of the table in La Liga, while Real Madrid play their second match tomorrow against Granada. Pressure already on Madrid?