La liga - week 11

redout

Saturday, 21 November 2009
Athletic Bilbao v Barcelona, 21:00 Sky Sports 2 - 9pm
Deportivo La Coruna v Atletico Madrid, 17:00
Real Madrid v Racing Santander, 19:00 Sky Sports 2 - 7pm
Tenerife v Sevilla, 17:00

Sunday, 22 November 2009
Espanyol v Getafe, 16:00
Malaga v Real Zaragoza, 18:00 Sky Sports 2 - 6pm
Mallorca v Almeria, 16:00
Osasuna v Valencia, 20:00
Villarreal v Valladolid, 16:00
Xerez v Sporting Gijon, 16:00


San Mamés - enough said.

Twinkle toes could also play for Real.

Eire-Dearg

Nice one, La Liga marathons are great on a Saturday evening. Goals please.

kinaldo

is Le Cheat playing tonight?

redout

No Ronaldo even though he trained yesterday. Most likely Zurich on wednesday night then definitely El Clasico next weekend.

redout

Real Madrid lineup:

Casillas, Arbeloa, Pepe, Garay, Drenthe, Granero, Xabi Alonso, Marcelo, Kaká, Higuaín, Benzema


Racing lineup:

Toño, Pinillos, Torrejón, Christian, Morris, Colsa, Lacen, Munitis, Serrano, Luis García, Tchité



Yet again no Raul. Serious talk in Spain of him retiring at the end of the season now that it looks like he is no longer a starter in the Madrid team.

gimmick

Depor just beat Atleti, who can go bottom this weekend, 2-1.

Come on Racing! Try keep them down to 5/6-0 anyway:p

Vurnon San Benito

Quite a controvesial end to that Atletico game too. Kun was absolutely furious!

I just need Barcelona & Real to win for my Fourfold to be complete and for £20 to be mine

redout

Goal.........

1 - 0

Higuain

Vurnon San Benito

Good stuff.
Had two different bets on Real to be winning at HT.
Let's hope they add to their lead.

gimmick

Good grief, how wasteful are Santander? They should be working the keeper at least.

monkey9

Anyone got the Barca lineup??

I wanna see if HE is playing!!

Sr. Pirotecnic

Henry is on the bench

redout

Barca lineup:

Valdés; Alves, Chigrinski, Piqué, Maxwell; Xavi, Busquets, Keita; Pedro, Messi, Iniesta


Bilbao lineup:

Iraizoz; Iraola, Ustaritz, Amorebieta, Koikili; Gurpegui, Orbaiz, Javi Martínez; Susaeta, Llorente, Yeste

redout

Christ, the ref is only 33 and this is his 7th season in la liga!

Eire-Dearg

Where's Ibra?

redout

Jesus, Messi missing a one on one!

What are the odds ?

redout

Eire-Dearg wrote: »

Where's Ibra?

He got a muscle injury in his leg during the Mallorca game and has not fully recovered. Should definitely be back for the Clasico next weekend though I reckon he should be ok for the Inter game during the week.

gimmick

How are Barca not ahead? Should only be a matter of time at this stage.

redout

Messi Ko'd

Cut to the eye and everything.

Talk about a high boot.

gimmick

Messi could very easily have had the Bilbao keeper in trouble there, but he jumped over the challenge. I think the keeper gave Messi the thumbs up when play stopped too acknowledge the honesty.

What a pass from Messi. What a miss from Xavi

redout

What a miss.

Free header and they put it wide.

Defending was non-existant there.

Let off for Barca.

JPA

Barca 1 up, good goal.

Vurnon San Benito

Great through ball, very good goal.
They need a 2nd to kill off the game though

redout

Goal...........

1 - 1

Toquero

Sr. Pirotecnic

Henry is coming on. Lots of boos! Was sure I saw some Athletic fans with tricolours earlier, wouldn't surprise me.

redout

Henry just came on to some boo's.

His first appearance since the infamous handball.

Spanish commentators going on about "Irish power"

ro2

A warm welcome for Thierry!

Headshot

what are the Bilbao fans chanting ?

henry is a cheat ?

redout

That draw is at to turning things on its head for El Clasico next weekend.

Now its Barca chasing Real.

Should be a right cracker

Ronaldo will be back.

Vurnon San Benito

Wrecked my fourfold, very disappointed.

Sr. Pirotecnic

Headshot wrote: »

what are the Bilbao fans chanting ?

henry is a cheat ?

Only heard "Athletic" chants, they're not that bothered about Henry

Headshot

Sr. Pirotecnic wrote: »

Only heard "Athletic" chants, they're not that bothered about Henry

I must be hearing stuff then

Eire-Dearg

Headshot wrote: »

I must be hearing stuff then

Spanish folk chanting Henry is a cheat in English would be great alright.

gimmick

A worrying performance from Barca last night. More points dropped in a game which should have been out of sight. Remindful in someways of the 2007/8 season. Playing the game the way they do is great when it works, nothing better in fact, but there does not seem to be a plan B.

I can see both Inter and Real coming to the Camp Nou, sitting back and trying to hit on the counter.

Huge week ahead which will shape the rest of the season.

redout

gimmick wrote: »

A worrying performance from Barca last night. More points dropped in a game which should have been out of sight. Remindful in someways of the 2007/8 season. Playing the game the way they do is great when it works, nothing better in fact, but there does not seem to be a plan B.

I can see both Inter and Real coming to the Camp Nou, sitting back and trying to hit on the counter.

Huge week ahead which will shape the rest of the season.

In fairness though they were missing Puyol, Abidal, Toure and Ibrahimovic. I suppose one could to a lesser extent argue Henry also. I would agree that its not ideal prep going into a game in which your champions league survival hinges on nor against your biggest rivals. Puyol, Henry and Ibra should all be back though and the other two with the swine flu is 50/50.

JPA

Messi is a doubt for Inter game as well.

gimmick

Its a squad game though. That was not a bad team out at all last night, and it should have been more than capable of disposing of Bilbao. I am not panicing, but the importance of the next 2 games cannot be under estimated.

redout

gimmick wrote: »

Its a squad game though. That was not a bad team out at all last night, and it should have been more than capable of disposing of Bilbao. I am not panicing, but the importance of the next 2 games cannot be under estimated.

I think if they are defeated by Inter and get knocked out of Europe then that aint going to sit well for the Clasico 3 days later and then I would be very worried. The Inter game is more important than the Clasico 3 days later. How often has that ever been said ?

Just to make folks aware of the situation. A Barca defeat to Inter and a Rubin Kazan (just won Russian league) victory over Dynamo Kiev will see the defending champions eliminated from the tournament. My opinion Barca wont be defeated by Inter though.

On the squad game thing I personally didnt think that was a great team put out last night and thought it have would have to labour to a victory.

Headshot

what happens if barca draw and rubin win ?

redout

Headshot wrote: »

what happens if barca draw and rubin win ?

Then Barca still need to defeat Kiev incase Rubin defeat Inter in the last group game. A Barca draw to Kiev is no good as Rubin have a better head to head.

EDIT: Apologies headshot I thought you said Rubin draw and Barca victory. If your thing happened then Rubin only require a draw in the last game against Inter.

yahoo_moe

gimmick wrote: »

Remindful in someways of the 2007/8 season. Playing the game the way they do is great when it works, nothing better in fact, but there does not seem to be a plan B.

As an Arsenal fan who keeps an eye on Spanish football, I always wondered if the "plan B" argument would come out against Barca during tough periods the way it did (and does) against Arsenal... personally I think Barca could lose twice this week and still be in with a chance of winning the league in May. Two defeats would obviously be damaging but that team's good enough to deal with a 4-point deficit to Madrid a third of the way through the season.

Even in the CL, two draws this week could still see Barca scrape through in the final round - which wouldn't be impressive (or what anyone expected) but could still see them in the latter stages of the tournament. Liverpool in particular have shown in recent years that you can scrape through the group stages and still challenge for the tournament.

Individual matches are very rarely 'make or break' in reality - if your belief is strong enough to cope with a blip or two (as Barca's should be), then it's about what you do over the full season, not one week.