Wednesday, March 9, 2011



After a first half dominated by FC Barcelona, capped off by a late Lionel Messi goal, Arsenal FC appeared as if they had their work cut out for them in the second half. The Blaugranas were in control of their UEFA Champions League tie, but a huge Barca mistake made things very interesting, very quickly.

In the 52nd minute, Sergio Busquets scored an own goal to level the match at 1-1 on the day, giving Arsenal a 3-2 advantage on aggregate. On a corner kick, a lunging Johan Djourou missed a ball that fell to a cluster of three Barcelona defenders, with no Arsenal player challenging. Despite this, Busquets attempted a risky clearance and headed the ball straight into the back of the net, almost as if he was trying to score. The announcers, the home crowd, and even the Arsenal players were left stunned.

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LIONEL MESSI

It appeared that Barcelona were going to respond instantly, but Manuel Almunia made his first of many brilliant saves of the second half in the 53rd minute. As David Villa surged into the box onto a through ball, Almunia rushed out and made a stop, taking an accidental kick to the face from Djourou in the process.
The 55th minute saw the true turning point in the match, and it was an extremely controversial one. Robin Van Persie, running onto a through ball, was flagged for offside. However, he was unaware of the flag and failed to hear the whistle over the Camp Nou crowd. Van Persie took a shot, which the referee declared to be time wasting, and showed Van Persie a second yellow card to take Arsenal down to ten men. Replays show that under two seconds elapsed between the whistle and Van Persie taking his shot.

At this point, with no defending to worry about, Barcelona amped up the pressure and begin to dominate the game to an even more extreme extent than they did in the first 55 minutes. Almunia made yet another brilliant save in the 57th, once again denying David Villa. He would make another incredible save, again on Villa, in the 67th minute.

The goal that was always coming was scored in the 68th minute, and this time, Almunia had absolutely no chance to do anything about it. Villa played a brilliant give and go in the center of the pitch, eventually resulting in Xavi having the ball at his feet in the center of the box. The central midfielder finished calmly, and Barcelona had their aggregate equalizer. After 68 minutes, the teams were level at 3-3 with one away goal each.

Arsenal could only hold on to a level tie for another three minutes, as their fate would be all but sealed in the 71st minute. With Pedro making a surging run into the box with the ball, he was taken down by Laurent Koscielny, leading the referee to grant a penalty to the Blaugranas. It was a stone cold penalty and a no-brainer for the official. Lionel Messi stepped up and converted, and Barcelona had their lead.

It looked from then on like Arsenal had no change to come back and that Barcelona would expand their lead, but going into the 87th minute, the score still stood at 4-3 on aggregate. In the moment of the match, Adriano gave the ball away to Jack Wilshere in his own half. Wilshere ran forward with the ball and played a fantastic centering pass into the path of substitute Nicolas Bendtner, who had every opportunity to score. Instead, the Dane took a terrible first touch, allowing Daniel Alves to push him off the ball and Victor Valdes to jump on top of it. It could have been the winner and the defining goal of the season for Arsenal, but instead, Bendtner's miss put a pit in the stomach of Arsenal supporters.

The match would end with a 3-1 Barcelona win, giving them a 4-3 win on aggregate. Though Bendtner should have scored to put Arsenal through, that result would have been extremely harsh on a dominant Barcelona team. They managed 76% possession to Arsenal's 24%, 717 completed passes to Arsenal's 195, and amazingly, 20 shots to Arsenal's zero.