CL Quarterfinal - Barça vs. Shakhtar Donetsk

Should be a comfortable tie for Barça, even though the 2nd leg is away from home. Knowing the team's poor away form in Europe, it's going to be key to get a big win at home in the 1st leg.

And it's the return of Chygrinskiy

To be fair you don't have a great record in Russia/Ukraine over the years:

1992/93 CL

CSKA Moscow 1-1 Barcelona
Barcelona 2-3 CKSA Moscow

1997/98 CL

Dynamo Kiev 3-0 Barcelona
Barcelona 0-4 Dynamo Kiev

2009/10 CL

Barcelona 1-2 Rubin Kazan
Rubin Kazan 0-0 Barcelona

So yeah, basically you are going out.

The team Barça wanted to avoid the most, they got.

Them South Americans playing for Shakhtar will give it a good go. Tough tough tough tie for Barça, believe it or not, but Barça shall advance.

We do play tonight, right?

Pedro starts on the bench??????

Pep is shitting it!

Did not realise that Busquets was injured. Barcelona definitely going out.

Eh? Busquets starts. It's Pedro and Maxwell who are just back from injury.

Oh weird there must have been a mistake on UEFA.com initially. He wasn't listed when I first checked.

You're just still impressed by last night's win and you can't judge properly. No worries.

Haha, awesome. 1-0 already.

Shakhtar are looking dangerous though. Can really play with the ball at their feet.

Who Scored? Mascherano?

Chris 23* wrote:Who Scored? Mascherano?

Iniesta.

3 dangerous chances for Shakhtar now...their Brazilian 4 up front are finding it very easy to create holes in Barça's defense.

Fucking hell, another near miss. Bad back pass by Dani Alves, Valdes comes rushing out and gets the ball...then a Shakhtar player tries a Stankovic but thankfully misses.

Barça taking over control now...2 good chances both of which Alves was guilty of one pass too many when he could have shot.

Brilliant goal...control and finish from Alves after a superb diagonal ball from Iniesta, the magician. Keeper should have been more aggressive.

Messi has been brilliant tonight as well.

Must focus on keeping a clean sheet now. Luiz Adriano has split the CBs far too often. Sort it out Pep.

Piquenbauer 3-0

3-00000000000000000000000000000

Conceded a goal

But Keita scores immediately

Great performance tonight, really stepped up to a new level to meet the demands put by Shakhtar.

Bloody hell that was close...Adriano hit the inside of the far post, and the ball rebounded back across the goal-line, somehow not going in.

Barça immediately go up the other end and have a goal wrongly disallowed for offside

5-1! Xavi makes a run into the box and after some good footwork, Alves finds him easily.

Well done, now the return leg can be a relaxing affair, just a few days before the Clasico.

55555555555

Another brilliant match by Iniesta. Probably the best player in the world right now, considering both form and class.

We should have scored more, we had the chances.
But i cant believe how many mistakes our back 4 made tonight, almost all of their chances came from our mistakes.
We need Abidal.

I am really surprised scored 5 goals, thought we were going to win but never by four goals, guess we needed to one up real and put it away so we could rest some players for the 2nd leg, which will be right before the classico.

what a game by iniesta, guess this shows people what us barca fans were talking about regarding the inter game last season. the man makes the difference.

we need to recall botia next season and buy another CB, with puyol and abidal being if from here on it

Puyol maybe is a if, but not Abidal.
Milito is gone, so Pique needs a partner (not Ibra), some of our young centrebacks can fill that place.
Though you never know with Puyol, he might have a year or two more on good form.

Pep: "Me veo más fuera que dentro de la eliminatoria, no tengo buenas sensaciones"