FCBARCELONA.CAT

09.09.2007 17:00

A succesfull home debut (4-2)

Jaume Marcet

Pep Guardiola had a successful official home debut on the Miniestadi bench. His team played authoritative football in front of a sizeable crowd, and set out to entertain and score goals right from the off.

Striker Víctor Vázquez was the outstanding figure of the first half. Playing on the left he is the ideal linkman between the midfield and attack, and he was the first player to warm the gloves of visiting stopper Nogués. Vázquez was involved in all the set pieces, but when the first goal game, it was from the man playing on the right, Jeffren. The Canary Islander left two defenders in his wake before slotting home a low, hard drive to make it 1-0. Vázquez added the second shortly after surprising the goalkeeper with a shot into the near post. The negative note of the half was a nasty knock on Jeffren, who was forced to retire and received twelve stitches on his bleeding lip.

Lively second half

Jeffren was replaced by another Canary Islander, Pedrito, who scored nine minutes into the second half when he latched onto an excellent cross from Botía. It all looked decided, especially with Balaguer down to ten men following the sending off of Juanjo, but that was when the visitors responded with two goals from dead ball situations. Parra and Iván López surprised Barça keeper Oier with two unusual goals, and suddenly the game was up in the air again. But Balaguer’s recovery faced a further set back when ten became nine after Abraham was shown a red card for a last-man tackle on Moisés. It was desperate stuff, and it wasn’t decided until the very end when Guerra nodded home a Pedrito cross to make it 4-2. That’s four points from two games for Barça B, and next up will be Manresa.