FC Barcelona travelled down to Villarreal on Saturday night for week 21 of this season’s Spanish League. The «yellow submarines» as they are known to their fans are way down at the bottom of the table in the relegation zone and things have not been looking too good for them. Out of 19 matches played prior to meeting Barcelona they had won just four, with seven draws and eight losses.
In comparison, FC Barcelona had 13 wins, with five draws and just a single loss. Also take a look at the number of goals: just 18 for Villarreal compared with Barcelona’s 59. Therefore on paper, it should have been an easy win for Barcelona, whose morale should have been high after eliminating Real Madrid from the Copa del Rey during the week.
However, football isn’t about stats and it isn’t fought on paper; it’s what happens on the pitch that counts and in the event, there were few real chances to score. Villarreal’s goalkeeper seemed to be in good form when Barcelona were on target, and the defence of the yellow submarines was solid, so creating those opportunities was tough. The first half offered few opportunity for Barça, and while Villarreal did create several chances to attack the Barcelona goal nothing ultimately came of it.
When the teams came out of the second half Villarreal were looking slightly more urgent, but it was Barcelona who controlled the play. However, despite having high possession of the ball, they were unable to do anything with it that counted. It wasn’t really until the last ten minutes of the match that Barça had some good opportunities to score and it looked like they would take the three points. However, it just didn’t happen and the match ended goalless.
The result was disappointing for Barcelona, who were already trailing Real Madrid by five points. With Real Madrid winning their match on Saturday it now leaves Barcelona seven points behind and it’s starting to look as if la liga is out of their reach. While theoretically they aren’t out of the race, it’ll take some poor results from Madrid to turn that around for them. It remains to be seen whether misfortune will strike Madrid so hard. While their first match against Barcelona in the Copa del Rey quarter final was won comfortably by Barcelona, the return leg was nowhere near so close and in fact Barcelona was lucky to draw 2-2 and qualify; now that they are out of contention for the Copa del Rey, Madrid’s focus can remain on the domestic and European trophies.
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