Barcelona vs. Getafe: Winners and Losers from La Liga Game
Barcelona entertained their home fans with a fantastic 6-0 win over Getafe in La Liga on Tuesday night.
Lionel Messi opened the scoring from the penalty spot and added the last goal of the night in the first minute of the second half—but the remainder of the first 45 was a procession in attacking football from the Catalan side. Luis Suarez netted a brace and Neymar and Xavi both scored one each as Getafe fell apart.
Here are all our winners and losers as Barcelona went five points clear at the top of the table in Spain.
Winner: MSN
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There is no better front three in world football right now than this troika.
Luis Suarez, Lionel Messi and Neymar all put in a magnificent performance to absolutely destroy Getafe, with their movement and technical ability on the ball just far too much for the away team to cope with.
Each scored, each assisted and they've totalled 102 goals between them in all competitions this season, a phenomenal tally. Their work rate, closing down and constant movement to create space were all excellent throughout, and they were the big difference in the game again.
Loser: Getafe's Defence Which Gave Up at 2-0
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In terms of the Getafe "defence," we're referring here to the entire defensive shape of the team, not simply those in the back line.
Initially they had shown good organisation and worked hard to pivot and tilt across the pitch as Barcelona looked to work down the channels, but after the first couple of goals went in, it all went pear-shaped.
Xavi started to find spaces to make passes through, while Suarez and Messi dropped deep and found more gaps to dribble through, and nobody from the away side looked to work hard enough from that point on.
Barcelona were on top of their game, true, and the goals were of the highest quality, but in general open play, a lot more was needed from Getafe to cope.
Winner: Luis Enrique, Who Looks Unstoppable in the Search for a Debut Title
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Luis Enrique swapped his team around again for this match, bringing back in the likes of Marc Bartra, Jeremy Mathieu and Adriano, but once more his side got the job done in perfect fashion.
The front three played very much in tandem with each other, the midfielders covered with diligence and intent on the rare occasions when the defence was troubled and the fans certainly responded to the performance of their heroes at every goal, substitution and full-time whistle.
There were questions of Enrique when he joined, more of them early in the season after rotations and supposed in-fighting—but he has the title almost in his grasp, one final and one semi-final to look forward to.
Not bad going at all.
Loser: Pedro
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Barcelona forward Pedro has to watch on from the sidelines as the all-action front three excel on a weekly basis, and he is getting no closer to any regular first-team action at Barcelona.
Of course, the MSN attack is not only on another level to him in a technical sense, but also in terms of clinical edge in front of goal and with the final pass.
He came on as a substitute with half an hour left and had minimal impact; in truth, the game had started to slow in tempo by that point, but there were still many occasions when Barcelona had the ball in the final third.
However, Pedro's delivery from the channels was below par, and he really must be thinking that he's not getting back into the first team unless he moves on.
Winner: Xavi, Still the Master
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Xavi came back into the Barcelona team for this match and totally ran the show for an hour.
Passing and poise, tempo and timing: Xavi was the driving force from the first whistle, looking to get on the ball and push from middle to final thirds, following up play from deep to either play the final ball himself or take a shot from range. This he did to fine effect for his goal, curled effortlessly into the top corner.
When he left the field for Pedro on 60 minutes, he received a massive ovation—and deservedly so.
