Spanish Football - Barcelona at the Top of La Liga

The Blaugranas of the Spanish League, the FC Barcelona, reached the top of the table of the Spanish Primera Liga this past Saturday, by beating the Malaga team 1-4.

The game was hard for Barcelona as heavy rainstorms were falling at the Malaga home stadium. But that didn’t matter to Barca since they did a great job all game long and took advantage of their opportunities in the match.

Xavi Hernández opened the score by accomplishing the first goal at minute 5 in a free kick. Seven minutes later Duda tied the game for Malaga by picking up the ball outside the area and waving a shot. However, just six minutes later, things changed again for Barcelona at the 18”, when Messi picked up a clearance from Weligton and scored the second goal for the Culés. On the second part of the match, Xavi appeared again scoring his second goal of the night during the minute 52, putting the game 1-3 in favor of his team Barcelona. Barca kept dominating the rest of the game and its last score was an own goal by Weligton when he turned aside the Dani Alves’ free kick at the 80 minute.

This is Barcelona’s eleven straight victory since the start of the season. FC Barcelona has won 3 games at the Champions League, and 8 in the Spanish League. Now the Barca next opponent in the Champions League is the Swiss team Basel. The game will be played at the home stadium of Barcelona, the Camp Nou, on November 4th.  . On the other hand, in the Spanish League Barcelona will play against the 14th place Valladolid on November 8th. With this two games coming up, Barcelona will try to maintain their undefeated draw to add points to the classification of the Champions League and preserve their top spot in La Liga. 

Currently, Barcelona has 22 points, followed by Villareal with 21 and Real Madrid and Valencia with 20 each. Team’s manager Pep Guardiola is very pleased with the performance of his players and the attitude they have developed over the pass weeks, but he assure that this doesn’t mean that the team is going to carry away and relax.

“The results come from humility and work and I am very satisfied with my players but would like to do this speech at the end of the season, it still 87 points left. Thinking the game is won before we play it is the danger here. We have to play with humility and respect to our opponents because if not we will be given a scare,” expressed Guardiola.

Now the Barcelona is considered by the fans and the analysts as one of the strongest and favorites’ teams to win La Liga. However, we’ll see if the Barcelona players will maintain their shape and their way of playing throughout the rest of the season. We all hope that with the contribution of Xavi, Messi, Iniesta and the rest of the team, Barcelona will keep their winning spirit and the unification that characterizes the club this year.