Cordoba 0-8 Barcelona: Five talking points
Barcelona continue to stay atop La Liga with 87 points after a scintillating performance against Cordoba at the El Arcangel stadium. Barcelona found the back of the net on eight occasions with five different goal scorers – Luis Suarez (3), Lionel Messi (2), Ivan Rakitic, Gerard Pique and Neymar.The result of the game didn’t seem a no-brainer right from the first minute as Luis Enrique’s men had to do quite a lot before opening the scoring in the 42nd minute. With Messi, Neymar and Suarez all adding goals to their tally, Messi allowing the Brazilian to take the penalty, Suarez netting his first La Liga hat-trick, much had happened in the 8-0 decimation.We take a look at the major talking points from the game.
#1 Tweaks to Barca\'s approach worked perfectly
Enrique’s men were made to work hard almost until the end of the first half to be able to break the deadlock but they finally succeeded in doing so after a sublime diagonal ball from Messi to Rakitic over the top of Cordoba’s defensive line. Cordoba had ensured that the final third was always crowded with 8-9 players forming two defensive lines of four in each line.
This denied Barca any space to be able to create chances through the centre. Despite creating half chances at regular intervals, Barcelona were only able to score through Rakitic after an excellent aerial ball over the defensive lines from Messi. Enrique’s pragmatic approach was evident yet again as the Blaugranas tweaked their plans accordingly and the first five goals out of the eight had come from such exquisite aerial balls which left Cordoba’s defense clueless.
From what had looked like a frustrating draw in the first half, the tables turned to the extent that it became the biggest victory of the season for Barcelona.