Barca suffer at La Rosaleda for 1 nil win

Bernd Schuster’s Malaga made Barca go all the way for their one nil win at La Rosaleda last night in the Spanish League.

It was a tough match as Barca piled on the pressure to try and break the stalemate against a Malaga side which has lost many of its top stars like Joaquin and Isco to name but two.

Schuster’s team was full of young players ready to defend with passion. It showed because Barcelona couldn’t work their magic against such a disciplined outfit.

Malaga keeper Willy Caballero was also to be applauded in the Malaga goal. He saved a few good shots and a certain goal from an Alexis diving header that should have hit the back of Caballero’s net.

Victor Valdés is to be applauded too as he had to spring into life at the end and stop two certain winners. The quality of a keeper can be measured just by one or two actions in a game where he has little to do.

It was up to Adriano though to break the deadlock with a super curling shot with his left foot with went in just inside the Malaga keeper’s far post. This game was going to be won with a great strike and Adriano was on key.

However, Adriano was to be substituted after noticing some discomfort in his right hamstring.

Schuster later lamented the 3 Malaga chances and said: “If you get three chances in a game, one of them must go in for sure”. He also had time to say that the Barca team was the “best in the world”.

Although Malaga defended like champions with only Fabregas really keeping Schuster’s men on their toes, they lacked a plan at the other end of the pitch to net one of the three chances that Barca gave them.

Neymar came on for Pedro in the 17th minute of the second half to cause a few scares and Malaga’s Sergio Sánchez was lucky not to receive a second yellow card for going in hard on the Brazilian. Gámez also escaped punishment by the ref.

Tiredness started to show and Neymar is one player that the Malaga defense didn’t want to see on the left wing, thus late challenges on the young star quickly became the norm.