Messi can dribble well, but for shooting? Well..
Ok. Barcelona have won the Champions League by beating Manchester United. 2 of the 3 goals scored by Barcelona can and must be attributed to Lionel Messi. Villa’s finish was no doubt magnificent for the 3 rd goal after some hard work done on the left side by Messi.
But what the heck was Nani doing, marking Messi on the left back position. That is something strange, well does not matter now.
About the 2nd goal scored by Messi for Barcelona. What on earth happened to Van Der Saar. I mean, it was obviously obvious that Barcelona were targeting the left hand of Van Der Saar. May be he is not as quick on that side as he is with his right hand.
But the shot from Lionel Messi, though powerful, was almost straight down the middle. Why the heck did Van Der Saar not even get a touch on the ball is something that needs to be addressed. Messi was allowed far too much space. He is a great player and he will punish people for leaving him unmarked.
That goal was I think a bit too easy for Lionel Messi. I think Barcelona did their homework pretty well on Van Der Saar. For both of the 1st two goals of Barcelona, he was wrong footed and basically forced to watch the ball go by into the net.
I can say with 90 percent confidence that Casillas would have saved the first two goals scored by Barcelona. May be the first one was touch and go since the keeper had to guess one way or the other but the 2nd goal from Messi was pure regulation.
Van Der Saar’s huge structure did not help him there at all. He was not able to get down quickly enough. Casillas I think would have had that saved 9 times out of 10.
This does not necessarily mean that Messi cannot shoot well. It is just that, his shooting is not up to the level of his rivals like Ronaldo and Rooney. He can dribble like hell, no doubt. He beat the bejesus out of Manchester United’s defenders tonight and as I said in the previous post, the final was a let down really.
Perhaps, everyone should have been expecting that (apart from Barcelona fans, who rightly thought that Barcelona would stroll through the final and win another Champions League crown) Barcelona would have a pretty much easy game on their hands. Real Madrid could not do much damage to Barcelona so I think it was unfair on Manchester United to expect them to give Barcelona some sort of a scare.
Well, this once again shows that only Real Madrid (amongst the Elite clubs of European football) can match and beat Barcelona. The rest of the field are just way behind Barcelona at the moment. I am not saying Real Madrid could beat everyone in Europe but Real Madrid can certainly beat Barcelona as Real Madrid showed in the last 4 clasicos of the 2010-2011 season.
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