Barcelona’s Iniesta doubtful for Liga derby against Espanyol

MADRID — Barcelona has Neymar back from a suspension but captain Andres Iniesta is in doubt for the local derby against Espanyol this weekend in the Spanish league.

Iniesta is bothered by a right leg muscle injury, and did not practice on Friday. He was rested in the 7-1 win over Osasuna on Wednesday, three days after he played from the start in the 3-2 win in the clasico against Madrid.

Barcelona coach Luis Enrique said he will wait as long as possible to try and field the midfielder.

If Iniesta can’t play, his likely replacement will be Andre Gomes, who scored twice against Osasuna.

Iniesta has not been a regular starter as in previous seasons. Also, the Spain midfielder missed five games at the beginning of the season because of a left leg muscle injury.

Neymar is welcomed back after missing the last three games because of a red card in the 2-0 loss at Malaga on April 8. He served one match for the automatic suspension and two more for sarcastically applauding an assist referee after being sent off.

“He is ready to play,” Luis Enrique said of Neymar. “He will be vital for us.”

Barcelona has thrived against Espanyol, winning 11 of their last 12 games in official competitions. Espanyol’s last victory was in the 2008-09 season, 17 matches ago.

Barcelona is tied for the league lead with Real Madrid, which has a game in hand. Madrid hosts Valencia on Saturday.

Madrid, which relinquished the league lead on head-to-head tiebreaker when it lost the clasico at home, returns to Santiago Bernabeu Stadium to play a Valencia team that has lost two matches in a row and hasn’t won in three rounds.

Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane did not say whether he will rest some starters for the Champions League semifinal against Atletico Madrid next week. Cristiano Ronaldo and some others didn’t play on Wednesday in the 6-2 win at Deportivo La Coruna.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Barcelona, Madrid play last games with title in the balance

BARCELONA, Spain — It all comes down to the last match.

With the title still up for grabs, Barcelona and Real Madrid have one game to play on Saturday with only one point separating them.

Barcelona can retain its title, making it eight in 12 years and 24 in club history, with a victory at Granada. At the same time, Madrid visits Deportivo La Coruna hoping to culminate a spectacular comeback and get a huge boost of confidence for its Champions League final against Atletico Madrid on May 28.

“This match is custom made for Barcelona’s players. This type of game is what inspires teams,” Barcelona coach Luis Enrique said Friday. “There are games when you have to motivate players, but there is more than enough motivation for this game. It is more about controlling the emotions.”

Barcelona holds a one-point advantage and the tiebreaker over Madrid, so the team coached by Zinedine Zidane needs to beat Deportivo and hope Barcelona drops points to add to its record 32 titles.

Zidane has asked his players to concentrate on their match, and said he would not follow the score from Barcelona’s game from the dugout while his team plays.

“I’m not going to find out what has happened (with Barcelona’s match) until the end,” Zidane said. “We don’t depend on ourselves, but we have to think only about our match and how we can win and get the three points. Then we will see.

“We have faith. We have won 11 games (in a row) and we are within one point with one match to go. We have to believe until the very last second.”

Here are some more things to know about Saturday’s decisive matches:

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LUIS’S LEGACY

Last season, Luis Enrique matched Pep Guardiola’s treble of Champions League, Spanish league and Copa del Rey titles.

And his team was on course to repeat that feat until it fell to Atletico in the Champions League quarterfinals. That coincided with a three-game losing run in the Spanish league which let Madrid surge back into contention.

Now, Barcelona’s season, regardless of the outcome of the Copa del Rey final against Sevilla on May 22, rests on whether it can handle the pressure at Granada.

“I think we recovered the level of play that we are accustomed to several weeks ago,” Luis Enrique said. “Now, it is just like every week. We have to play better than Granada, create more chances and limit theirs to get as close as we can to taking the three points.”

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THE ZIDANE EFFECT

Zidane made his debut as a top coach against Deportivo in January, when his new team thrilled the Santiago Bernabeu with a decisive 5-0 win that its fans hoped was a sign of bigger things to come.

Since replacing the fired Rafa Benitez, Zidane has guided the team to the Champions League final and a strong record of 16 wins, two draws and one loss in the Spanish league.

“I am happy, not only my work, but that of all my players,” Zidane said. “But I haven’t won anything yet. We will see after the season is over. We have two very important finals to play.”

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TOP GUNS

Barcelona and Madrid claim six of the top seven goal scorers in the competition, and the title could depend on which trio has its day.

Barcelona’s Luis Suarez leads the league with 37 goals. The Uruguay striker is supported by Lionel Messi, who has scored 26 times, and Neymar with 24.

Suarez has scored 11 of those goals in the last four matches, helping Barcelona end a four-game winless slide that almost cost it the league lead with a run of four straight wins by the combined score of 21-0.

Cristiano Ronaldo tops Madrid’s scorers with 33 goals in the league. Karim Benzema has added 24, with Gareth Bale contributing 19, including a few critical winners in recent weeks.

Bale returned to practice after missing last weekend’s match with a leg injury. Zidane said that Ronaldo and Benzema were completely recovered from their nagging leg injuries as well.

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THE OPPONENTS

Both Granada and Deportivo are safe from the relegation fight and without options of earning a berth in European competition next season.

Madrid has won on its last four visits to Deportivo, but Riazor Stadium is traditionally a tough ground for Madrid, where it has won 13 times in 49 visits.

Barcelona has dropped points on nine of 21 trips to Granada’s Los Carmenes Stadium.

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THE PRECEDENTS

If history matters, it’s on Barcelona’s side.

This will be the eighth time the two powerhouses have both arrived to the final round with options to win the title. Barcelona came out on top in six of the previous seven occasions.

The Catalan club edged Madrid in the inaugural 1929 league and did so again in 1960.

It got much worse for Madrid during back-to-back debacles in 1992 and 1993, when it lost an advantage to Barcelona in the final round with losses at Tenerife.

Madrid finally outdid Barcelona in 2007, while a Barcelona side coached Guardiola protected its lead to win in 2010.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Messi scores 2 as Barcelona strike force reaches 100 goals

MADRID — Lionel Messi continued his impressive form by scoring two goals in Barcelona’s 4-0 win over Eibar in the Spanish league on Sunday, as the strike force of Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar reached a total of 100 goals this season in all competitions.

It was the fourth goal, scored by Suarez after Messi’s earlier brace, which brought up the scoring century, keeping the trio on track to beat the record of 122 set by them last season.

Messi scored with a great run in the 41st and added a penalty in the 76th, leaving Barcelona with an eight-point advantage over Atletico Madrid, which won 3-1 at Valencia to keep pace with 10 games to go.

Real Madrid remained 12 points behind Barcelona after trashing Celta Vigo 7-1 on Saturday with four goals by Cristiano Ronaldo.

“We are where we are thanks to our hard work,” Barcelona coach Luis Enrique said. “Now we enter the decisive stages of the season and we are fighting for titles but there are still a lot of points left. There are no guarantees that we will keep playing at this level. We will not get distracted by those saying that we have already won the league.”

Messi is enjoying his best form of the season. The five-time world player of the year has scored 15 goals in the last 10 matches, and eight in the past four, staying on course to win his eighth league title with the Catalan club.

Munir El Haddadi opened the scoring in the eighth minute after a cross by Suarez, who netted his league-leading 26th goal in the 84th.

It was Barcelona’s 11th straight win in the league. It hasn’t lost in 36 consecutive games in all competitions. The last defeat for Enrique’s squad was a 2-1 loss at Sevilla in the seventh round in October.

“Our motivation is to keep this lead until the end and win the title,” Barcelona defender Javier Mascherano said. “We know there is still a lot of league left and any setback could give a chance to our opponents to move closer. It’s a good advantage but we have to keep playing like this and avoid mistakes.”

It was the fourth loss in a row for Eibar, which remains in eighth place in the standings.

Messi netted his 20th league goal with a remarkable run from near midfield that culminated with a low shot into the far corner. The Argentine star cleared two defenders before striking from inside the area.

He calmly converted the penalty kick prompted by a hand ball inside the area, sending his shot into the middle of the goal as the goalkeeper dived away.

Messi had scored a hat trick in the 5-1 rout of Rayo Vallecano on Thursday.

Munir, replacing suspended Brazilian striker Neymar, had opened the scoring with an easy goal from close range after a low cross by Suarez.

Suarez scored the fourth goal after sneaking the ball between the legs of a defender and firing a low shot from inside the box. The Uruguay striker hadn’t scored in three matches following a run of seven straight games with at least one goal.

Suarez had missed the last two penalty kicks awarded for Barcelona, which is the team with the most penalty calls in its favor in the league this season with 14.

Suarez, Messi and Neymar scored 122 times last season to surpass the 118 goals netted by Real Madrid strikers Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Gonzalo Higuain in 2011-12.

Atletico Madrid defeated Valencia with goals by French forward Antoine Griezmann in the 24th, substitute striker Fernando Torres in the 72nd and midfielder Yannick Carrasco in the 85th. Russian striker Denis Cheryshev scored Valencia’s goal in the 28th.

Gary Neville’s team was trying to win for the sixth time in seven games in all competitions. It was Valencia’s second consecutive home loss in the league, dropping it to 11th in the standings.

Earlier Sunday, 10-man Real Betis defeated visiting Granada 2-0 to move further from the relegation zone. Betis defender Juan Manuel Vargas was sent off with a second yellow card in the 53rd.

Granada, 18th in the 20-team standings, had to use defender Cristiano Biraghi in goal in second-half injury time. That was after goalkeeper Andres Fernandez got a red card for touching the ball outside the area, a foul that led to Betis’ final goal.

Athletic Bilbao won 2-0 at Sporting Gijon to move to sixth place and leave its opponent second-to-last on the table, while 10th-place Real Sociedad drew last-place Levante 1-1 at home.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Barcelona sets club record of 29 straight games without loss

MADRID— Barcelona broke the club record with its 29th consecutive unbeaten game when its second-stringers salvaged a 1-1 draw against Valencia in the Copa del Rey semifinals on Wednesday.

Barcelona reached its third straight Copa final 8-1 on aggregate after it won the first leg 7-0 at the Camp Nou last week.

Striker Alvaro Negredo gave Valencia the lead in a breakaway before halftime, but Cameroon-born youngster Wilfrid Kaptoum, a member of Barcelona’s B team, equalized in the 84th, two minutes into his senior debut.

Barcelona eclipsed the record it shared with Pep Guardiola’s 2011 squad, despite playing without nearly all of its regular starters at Mestalla Stadium in Valencia, including Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Neymar. Coach Luis Enrique used youngsters, with Ivan Rakitic the only experienced starter.

“Honestly, the record wasn’t our main goal,” Rakitic said. “We are happy, but the most important thing is to win titles at the end of the season. We would all exchange the record for titles.”

The draw should increase pressure on Valencia coach Gary Neville, the former England defender who has been struggling in his first head-coaching job. He also used second-stringers in his squad, resting some of the starters for the Spanish league game against Espanyol on Saturday.

Barcelona will likely play the final against Sevilla, which holds a four-goal lead over Celta going into Thursday’s second leg in Vigo. It will be Barcelona’s sixth Copa del Rey final in the last eight seasons.

“We are thrilled to make it to another final,” Enrique said. “Our fans are getting spoiled, just look at the number of Copa finals that we’ve played in the last few years. It tells a lot about this club’s capacity to reinvent itself, it tells a lot about the type of players that we have.”

Enrique’s team hasn’t lost since a 2-1 defeat at Sevilla in the seventh round of the Spanish league in October. It was trying to win its 11th in a row on Wednesday.

Guardiola’s steak ended with a 3-1 loss at Real Betis in the Copa del Rey quarterfinals. His team won 23 games and drew five, scoring 85 goals and conceding 14.

Enrique’s squad has won 23 games and drawn six, scoring 87 and conceding 15.

The Barcelona team coached by Rinus Michels and including Johan Cruyff in the 1973-74 season, won 27 straight games.

Negredo opened the scoring after entering the area free from markers. He found the net after his initial shot was partially blocked by Barcelona goalkeeper Marc-Andre Ter Stegen. The late equalizer by the 19-year-old Kaptoum came with a close-range shot after a low cross by Juan Camara.

Valencia had lost three straight games. It hasn’t won in the Spanish league in 12 rounds, nine of those under the command of Neville.

“It’s a small step to try to regain some confidence and keep us in the right direction to turn things around,” Valencia forward Pablo Piatti said. “We are disappointed, the team hasn’t met expectations so far.”

Only about 16,000 fans showed up at the 55,000-seat Mestalla. A supporter held a banner that read: “Bye bye, Neville.”

“I’m thankful for the fans who came to the stadium. Some didn’t want to come and that was their right,” Neville said. “We weren’t playing under the best circumstances after what happened (in the first leg) last week, but the players played with dignity. We deserved to win.”

source: sports.inquirer.net