Pep Guardiola's Barcelona win third consecutive La Liga title
Celebrations were carried out at full swing in the streets of Barcelona as Pep Guardiola's men stood as Champions of La Liga for a third consecutive year. The Catalans only needed one point going into their match against Levante on Tuesday, and a point was all they got.
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Felipe-c13510 Caicedo. After 1-1, Barcelona held on to the result, saving a point in the end. Now they have completed their hat-trick of titles with two matches to go in Primera Division. The result though, ended Barcelona’s dreams of gaining 100 points this season. Nevertheless, the intentions shown by Pep Guardiola were clear from the match. He only did as much as he needed to do in order to wrap up the League title.
This year, Real Madrid gave a better fight to the Catalans than the last two seasons. For a short period, Madrid remained on top of the table until they were beaten by Barcelona in November, 2010. After that, Barcelona and Madrid kept on accumulating points and La Liga remained a two horse battle. However, points were dropped by Real Madrid in a couple of matches, practically giving the title to Barcelona. Even the second match between both sides ended up in a draw and the title hopes for the Los Blancos were lost almost a month ago.
The season has not been a perfect one for Guardiola and his men. Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi have had an incredible campaign as they improved their individual performances. However, problems were faced in the Catalan defence. The four left-backs in the squad, Eric Abidal, Adriano, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Carles-Puyol-c8331 also remained out of the playing XI for a very long period. Therefore, Guardiola had to adapt accordingly and he used nearly 20 different formations in his defence throughout the season.
This could have been disastrous for any other team, but Barcelona is well known for their attack, which kept them ahead for the most part of this season. Real Madrid did exploit this situation by beating Barcelona in the final of Copa del Rey, but the Catalans somehow coped well in other encounters. Now, the team is back to its original self and all the players will be available for the final showdown at UEFA Champions League final.
Despite a rather dominating season by the Catalans, there were some signs that suggest a different outcome for the next season. Towards the end of their campaign, Barcelona faced tough resistance from the opposing teams and victories were hard to come by. Although the possession was mostly dominated by the Catalans, the goals were not as frequently scored as in the first part of their season.
Still, this season has been great and Barcelona really won the title deservingly. Most of the credit goes to http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Lionel-Messi-c22296 and company, who led the team with their powerful attack. Apart from this, Eric Abidal had a great run as well in this campaign. He improved a lot as a full-back and then immediately took the place of Puyol as the centre-half.
An untimely operation on his liver could have meant a premature end to his season, but he has recovered at a very fast pace and is back once again. Barcelona owes much of this success to the Frenchman who became one of the most important players for his team this season.
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