Pep Guardiola happy with Barcelona
Pep Guardiola said that he was happy with Barcelona’s 1-1 draw against Rubin Kazan of Russian in the second round of the Champions League group games on Wednesday evening.
The Catalan manager and his team found themselves in trouble when they conceded the first goal of the game. Christian Noboa scored the penalty after Daniel Alves fouled Vitali Kaleshin. The goal made the home fans delirious and put Rubin Kazan 1-0 up at
the break.
However, new signing David Villa scored another penalty on the hour to give Barcelona a deserved draw and a spoil of the points. Barcelona had a lot of possession, but failed to break down Rubin Kazan.
There were periods of the game when Barcelona seemed to lack the creative guile of Lionel Messi who was on the bench after only recently returning from injury. The player failed to make much of an impact when he came off the bench and was well marked.
The Barcelona manager was asked about Messi and his return to the team, "he will try to continue making progress in his recovery. We are happy that he has returned."
Guardiola believes his players needed to be more clinical with their chances. "I'm happy with the performance of the players," Guardiola is quoted as saying by Barcelona's official website. "We had enough chances to win the game."
The Barcelona manager believes that his side will have to cope with defensive tactics in future games. He added that Rubin "played very well defensively."
Barcelona went into the game as favourites, but found it difficult to break down Rubin Kazan and now find themselves second in the group behind FC Copenhagen after the second round of matches.
Barcelona will play FC Copenhagen in the next round of matches in what could be crucial in determining who will win the group.
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