Manel Montilla/El Mundo Deportivo

This is a rare one for me, in that it was a match that was fraught with complexity, that found us missing key parts of the engine that has driven our club to its status as one of the best extant — and yet it turned into a comfortable win that allowed us to punch the cruise control button, and ease into an important midweek encounter.

Who knew?
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Um. Hmmm. Is anybody else’s heart still racing? Usually, a complex win seems less so after the second viewing, but not in this case. There were times that I almost couldn’t watch, and what the hell is it about Athletic Bilbao that makes them always such a difficult side for us?

I know. Some of it is their incessant fighting for every ball, every challenge, every inch of the pitch. Some of it is their remarkable keeper who, time and again, kept them around to have a shout in this tense, tense encounter. Some of it is our own waste. As Ray Hudson noted, we look a tired, tired club, one that will get no respite from the rest of the season, or from any club.

And one that is very, very happy to have Bilbao in the rear-view mirror for this year. Wow, what a match.
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Well, there aren’t going to be any pictures because of the ongoing server complexities, which is just as well. I am absolutely disgusted with our club right now. Did we deserve this loss? It depends on who you ask. Barca fans will say that it could easily have been 4-0 going into the half, and the tie would have effectively been over. They will also say that Messi’s goal was unjustly disallowed. Whatever. Fact of the matter is that we had chance after chance to win this tie today, to make it all effectively academic.

But that didn’t happen for so many reasons, most notably because not everyone came to play tonight — three of the club’s most rock-solid, reliable players, let the side down. Then Guardiola made wrong-headed substitutions, underestimating an Arsenal side that some might have thought was punching against its weight, but they have been playing like that all season. And we didn’t just lose, we got whipped by and at our own game.
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This is the kind of match that it was today. Pulling, kicking, scratching and fouling by an opponent fighting for its very existence. Sometimes, we just don’t understand, and this was one of those days. We’re on top of the world, everybody says that we’re the best EVAH and people slide off their chairs in ecstasy when we play. But sometimes, we just don’t get it.

A side such as Sporting Gijon is fighting for its Liga life. It isn’t a game to them, a match of football in which you display your talent, kick out the jams, score a few goals, then go home and read about how amazing you are. It is a constant battle to stay up, to stay out of the relegation zone, to not go down to a place that features the likes of Betis, a place that you might not be able to get out of again.

For them, it’s war. And shame on us for bringing a pillow to a knife fight.
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Pere Punti/El Mundo Deportivo

Leave to the irrepressible Ray Hudson to sum up this match far better than I, when he said, simply enough, “Defenders broken, goalkeeper ravaged,” because that was the kind of day that it was, a record-breaking, magical day at the Camp Nou, in the house of an amazing, amazing team.

–Messi scored a hat trick and took over the undisputed pichichi lead
–Our beloved club broke the Liga record for consecutive victories, with 16

It was also a crazy, crazy day that gave Guardiola plenty of ammunition for his pre-match talk. Presumably, all that he had to do was post a quartet of scores: Newcastle 4/Arsenal 4; Wolverhampton 2/United 1; Levante 1/Villarreal 0; Almeria 3/Espanyol 2. This a crazy, upset-rich day in world football that was, fittingly, made right by the best club in the world. We didn’t just beat Atletico, we owned them as yet another club concedes an early goal, but continues to play not to get hammered, as if victory is completely out of the question. No, we can’t just show up and win. But once we get that first goal, the psychological weight wreaks havoc with game plans and psyches.

And then there’s Messi.
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Years from now, when people are looking back on this club, irrespective of any silver that it might or might not have won, irrespective of any stars that don the shirt, it will be matches such as this one, the decider in a Copa del Rey semifinal that was decisively decided by a Camp Nou manita, that define the side.

It doesn’t matter who is on the pitch, it’s still Barca. It’s still a way of playing, a way of moving, of defending, of comportment, of winning. Almeria rolled out the same side that got hammered at our house for the home leg, hoping for a Betis — that is, a pride victory in a match that we don’t really care about. But unlike the Betis match, Guardiola rolled out the subs, players who don’t have to save anything for a weekend tie or looong season.

And it was 0-3, 8-0 on aggregate, and a trip to the Copa del Rey final to face one Evil Empire for the opportunity to grab our second piece of silver of the season.
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