Osasuna dishes out title blow to Barcelona

Okay it was cold, freezing in fact and not many people like to watch football in these conditions let alone play the game! This was the reality last night and a shocked Osasuna managed to run away with three valuable points by trouncing Barcelona 3-2 in Pamplona. As of late Barcelona doesn’t have a good away record with just four wins in eleven away games. Thus a deathly blow was dealt to the current champions league title hopes and have left it hanging by a thread.

With bitter rivals Real Madrid sitting pretty at the top with a seven point lead, they will surely capitalize on Barca’s failure last night to secure another three points when they play Levante today (Sunday) to make it ten points clear and increase their cushion.

Barca rested a number of key midfielders and were made to pay that price on a freezing night in Pamplona, with Osasuna opening up a two-goal lead by half time with two goals from Dejan Lekic. Maybe they were thinking about their midweek Champions league match against Bayer Leverkusen.

After the break, Barcelona started to play with their familiar style and Alexis scored to give Barca some hope. With Alexis goal it was it 2-1. However they were unable to hold back Osasuna who promptly stuck a third in and left Barca trailing 3-1.Later on young Cristian Tello scored a nice goal to make it 3-2 and cut the deficit.

Barca thought they had levelled late on when Sánchez scored a scrappy goal, only to be denied by the offside flag. If truth be told a draw would have been insufficient in any case as the league title looks to be heading back to Madrid and some Cibeles celebrations for the first time since 2008.

To top it off Cesc then wasted a gift of a chance late into injury time when he headed straight at Fernandez following a cheeky lob from little Messi. The chance of a point evaporated, as in all likelihood did Barcelona’s chances of retaining the title.