Barcelona Defended Their La Liga Title: Messi Being the Savior
With 3 games to spare Messi’s Barcelona FC won the La Liga title for 26th time trailed by the Atletico and Real Madrid, as the inseparable FC Barcelona and Messi touched many feats. Barcelona defended their La Liga title and Messi’s 10th surpassing Iniesta’s 9th title and their 8th titles in 11 years. As Barcelona benched Messi during the first half, to give him rest and also to prevent him from inflicting any injury during the match against such an opponent against which Barcelona was able and expected to win without Messi. But upset was in the making, as Barcelona remained goalless after half time, so Messi was brought in the match replacing Coutinho gave them the breakthrough they needed.
In the 62nd minute after Suarez’s left-footed shot was blocked, Messi’s left-footed shot went through, scoring the goal that secured the match and the La Liga title. Upon entering the field in the second half of the match Barcelona led by Messi constantly remained close to the Levante’s D-box creating wave after wave of attacks. Just before Messi’s sole goal Ousmane Dembélé’s shot missed the goal post by very little. But after the goal the game reversed, Levante made many attempts, some very near misses and some caught and thumped away the Barca keeper. It seemed like Levante couldn’t finish, they brought the ball, penetrating the D-box right, but their shots didn’t go through to the Barca’s net.
The way Levante played later in the match, it was proved that they could handle the mighty Catalan’s and they should have capitalized the absence of Messi in the first half and Barca’s Coutinho seemed to lost his way in the match, who was promptly replaced by rested Messi during the second half of the match.
All the better for Barca, the touched many feats, 8 titles in 11 years, even before the match they were way ahead of the League’s second place holder Atletico Madrid by nine points with 4 games to go. Even Levante played well, the way they defended in the goalless first half and penetrating Barca’s D-box many times in the second half, they proved themselves to be worthy opponents for big teams considering current performance against the top team of the Spanish league their future seems very bright and team to watch out in future.
Following are the statistics of the match:
Barcelona vs. Levante
Possession: 62% vs. 38 %
Shots on target: 12 vs. 2
Corners: 6 vs. 3
Fouls: 17 vs. 12
