Football Special Report: Barcelona’s Eric Abidal – “We are a bit out of luck!” (Part I)
The French national and the Barcelona left back came in front of the press to talk about the events that recently surrounded the Spanish champions, Barcelona. Barcelona, all of a sudden, have started to draw home games and this year round they have even
managed to lose one against the newly promoted side, Hercules. However, Hercules look to be very strong as they even managed to defeat Sevilla later on, during their run in the Spanish La Liga.
Eric Abidal admitted that the squad was quite angry after the draw that they pulled off against the former fourth placed La Liga team, Mallorca. The French defender quoted,
“We had plenty of chances to kill the game off. We are a bit out of luck!”
According to the statistics, Barcelona are currently performing at their “best” since Pep Guardiola has been the head of the team. No one can forget how the Catalan giants ripped every team apart after the 6-trophy-winning season. That year, with the help
of Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto’o, Xavi Hernandez, Thierry Henry and Andres Iniesta’s amazing attacking force, Barcelona were able to win all the competitions that they entered – a record that no other has ever accomplished.
Pep Guardiola said that the team is currently performing better than his first season. Even though Barcelona are failing to win games like they did last year or the year before that, it is true that their performance as a team is better than before. However,
it is not because the team is failing to perform. The main reason why Barcelona are failing to win is because they are putting a lot of chances away.
During the match against Mallorca, Barcelona managed to penetrate Mallorca’s defence 42 times and managed to shoot the ball on target for 26 times. Against the Champions League side Panathinaikos, Barcelona managed to shoot the ball 28 times on target. However,
that the Catalan giants won the match 5-1 and against Mallorca, they only managed to get a draw. It was clearly seen that Barcelona just could not capitalize on the opportunities that they get. Maybe it was simply because they lacked the spark that David Villa
and Xavi Hernandez provided them, but such excuses are not enough for the Barcelona fans since the “one man army,” Lionel Messi was a part of the first team.
On the opening day of the Spanish La Liga, Barcelona had to face Racing. During that game Barcelona only managed to put 10 shots on target but that day, the Spanish La Liga Champions managed to win the 0-3. It was simply shocking to see that Barcelona managed
to win the game with such a high margin when they had fewer shots on target but only managed a draw when they shot the ball 26 times towards the goal.
In terms of efficiency, Barcelona are definitely performing better than the last two seasons. However, Barcelona are not scoring as many number of goals as they did in the previous two. If the shots on targets are compared to the number of goals that the
Catalan giants scored before, then Barcelona would have scored at least 6 more goals.
At the moment, Barcelona are scoring 1 goal after every 9 attempts that they take on the goal. Last year, Barcelona scored a goal after 6, that means that this time Barcelona are definitely lagging in “finishing” the ball into the net. If Barcelona were
to score with the same average, they would have scored half a dozen more goals than their current goal scoring tally.
After the game, the team was interviewed about the game and the youngster Nolito, who came on for the injured Pedro Rodriguez, said that Barcelona could have scored at least 5 more goals during the game against Mallorca.
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