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Barcelona 9, L’Hospitalet 0: Match Highlights

Barcelona beating up on small club like Hospitalet in the Round of 32 of the Copa Del Rey didn't exactly come as a surprise, but when a Barca side with mostly reserves puts on a nine-goal masterpiece, it still becomes beautiful soccer worth watching.

The reigning Club World Cup champions should face a much tougher test in the Copa Del Rey in the quarters, where a likely meeting with Real Madrid awaits, but the 9-0 rout of L'Hospitalet serves as a reminder of just how dangerous Barca can be.

Here are the highlights:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXatdeO2s_c]

Comments

  1. SBI: No need to take offense. It wasn’t a “complaint”; it was just the expression of a feeling that it’s a little odd to use the word “masterpiece” to describe a Copa Del Rey win over a third division opponent. But as you say, to each his/her own, and I’m sure people liked it.

    Astonished that you remembered my previous post; I had forgotten about it, so I looked it up. I assume it’s the one about Barcelona 8-0 Osasuna? I’m pasting it in its entirety below, and I challenge you to find any complaint there about SBI posting the footage:

    “Barcelona are indeed an extraordinary team, but this is another reminder how unhealthy the current La Liga situation is. You have two teams so very far ahead of everyone else that if one gets consecutive away draws it can plausibly be described as a “crisis.”

    If your interest in soccer is entirely aesthetic, then this is the league for you. If what you like is competition than it’s best to look elsewhere.”

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  2. There is nothing beautiful about needing to blatantly dive against a third division team.

    This is like watching Mike Tyson beat up on an teenager with boxing aspirations and then say…. “but look at the technique and power of his punches”

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  3. Watched for 10 sec , saw an egregious dive that was called a penalty instead of a yellow card, then stopped

    It’s not a masterpiece of a game when u cheat against a scrub team

    Also I saw fabregas and puyol and Pedro out there not a receive
    Team either

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  4. I don’t see Atletico Madrid dismantling their lower division opponent?

    I believe Real Zaragoz and Villareal also lost to 2nd division clubs.

    Barcelona took out Xavi and Iniesta when he got a knock early around the 32-35th minute mark. Then subbed in another young guy.

    Cuenca, Thiago, Tello and Dos Santos playing a lot along with Fontas is pretty good and helps them develop. Barcelona B which play a lot of these guys are a great 2nd Division team that were it not for them focusing on player development and adapting to Barca’s 4-3-3 and total football mixed with tiki-taka and more focused a bit on results, they’d easily be top 2 team in Segunda and earn promotion. But they are basically the reserves/academy for Barca and La Mesia…

    Say what you will about destroying a much weaker team but they’ve done it with teams in La Liga in league play, did to Lyon and Bayern Munich, did it to Inter but much lower scoreline on a much better team in group CL play and did it to CL teams this year…..

    Hell did it to Madrid last year, and that was plain pathetic and worst than this, as Madrid got ridiculous calls in their favor and ref took about 2 goal scoring chance denying fouls and didn’t pull reds or yellows much..

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  5. What is the point of playing beautiful football when the other team can not compete? It just seems to be very classless to drive up the score on a small team like that. Really they had to score nine to prove and show the world that they play beautiful football? What annoys me more than articles like these are people that accept thashings like these and consider them to be sportsman like. But since the goalfest was due to a great quality of football by one team and had nothing to do with the fact there was an incredible lack of football by other team that makes the outcome an incredibly sugarcoated victory.

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  6. nice post. i too click on all barca highlights, but barca playing a third tier team feels like a silly exhibition. it’s not a serious competition and thus the goals and tricks are cheapened

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  7. “Beautiful soccer worth watching.” Do you really think so? You’re talking about one of the best teams in the world crushing opponents from the third tier of their country’s system, in a league where the disparity of quality both between and within divisions is immense. As T says, 9-0 is a completely unsurprising result under those circumstances.

    I realize that Barca are a very special team. And I realize that they have many fans, fans who will read these stories, click on links and provide the page views that websites like this need to make money. But I think the mismatch in quality, the one-sidedness of the match, and the low stakes of the competition diminish greatly from the “beauty” of the performance. In general, I feel like you guys kind of over-emphasize aesthetics on this site. The aesthetic dimension of soccer is important, but it is secondary to the competitive nature of the game. I love beautiful soccer when it matters, and when it’s between two teams who are near each other’s level. But I dunno… this kind of stuff leads me feeling cold. Give me Blackburn 0-1 Stoke any day.

    (SBI-Nobody’s saying that as a competitive game, Barca beating a third-tier team has more value than a hard-fought 1-0 game between evenly-matched teams, but in terms of entertaining highlights, this game provided entertainment. If you can’t appreciate entertainment value then that’s on you. And at a time of year when there’s not a lot going on, it was well worth showing these highlights.

    What’s interesting is you complain about the level of opponent, yet when Barcelona hung eight goals on a LA LIGA opponent, and we posted the highlights, you complained then as well. I get it, you hate blowouts, but guess what? You can feel free not to watch the highlights. No real need to get on your soap box every time we post something that isn’t suitable to your taste.)

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  8. Reserves that make gross amounts of money. I’d like to sees how their salaries compare to the team they played. Also diving is for homos. Not impressed anymore than if Blake griffin were to dunk over me

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  9. Spanish teams have many divers within their squads, Barca has alot and so does Madrid, their dives have to be the most obvious looking ones I’ve ever seen in my life besides the games in the Mexican Primera Division.

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  10. This isn’t impressive, L’Hospitalet is a small club and Barcelona “should” destroy teams such as these whether reserves or starters. Outscoring another team 9-0 does tell you who dominated the game, but Real Madrid could’ve done the same thing or another semi-big club like Atletico probably.

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  11. Iniesta and Xavi played less than 40 minutes, in fact Iniesta came off after 32 minutes.

    Thiago
    Fontas
    Cuenca
    Sergi Roberto
    Tello
    dos Santos
    Pinto

    That’s a LOT of reserve players playing the majority of the match.

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  12. They put out a bunch of under 20 kids with a couple first team players and still just stream roll teams.

    I think there were a few 18 year olds playing.

    Reply

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