Barcelona one goal away from Moscow

Barça’s Champions League challenge came to end this evening away to Manchester United. They gave it their all and took every risk they had to, but once again the lack of goals proved costly. A thunderous strike from Scholes after Barça had dominated the first quarter of an hour put the home side in the driving seat, but Rijkaard’s knew that if they could equalise, they would qualify by virtue of the away goals rule. But it wasn't to be, and Barça's unbeaten record in Europe this season came to a sad end.

Scholes destroys Barça’s promising start

From the outset, it was clear that Barça were going for it in a big way. They piled on the pressure from the very first minute, and Manchester United were held back in their own half as they had been at the Camp Nou. It was the dream start, but disaster struck after 14 minutes when Scholes latched onto an unfortunate clearance from Zambrotta and slammed the ball into the top left corner from 25 metres, leaving Valdés well beaten.

End to end stuff

The goal seemed to knock the stuffing out of Barça, while the Red Devils burst into life and started creating all kinds of problems for the Barcelona defence. The action was relentless, and Barça picked themselves up after a brilliant individual run from Leo Messi, followed by a Park effort for United that just went wide of the post, and two dangerous shots from Deco that missed by inches.

Intensity rised every single second

The game pressed on at the same extraordinary pace, with Nani almost scoring from a header after 40 minutes, and Milito going close with a similar chance at the other end. The first 45 minutes had offered some memorable football from two great sides desperate to secure their places in Moscow, and the second half proved to be just as much of a thriller. Deco led the Barcelona midfield in style, and the United fans held their breath every time an electrifying Messi came near the ball as the visitors pressed forwards in search of that elusive equaliser.

Miracles were not supposed to happen...

Manchester United decided to withdraw and keep things tight at the back, yet still looked dangerous on the counter attack, which was how Tevez almost scored in the 57th minute, but Valdés got a hand to the ball. Henry and Bojan were sent on to add some new spark to the Barcelona attack, and the Frenchman came frustratingly close to scoring with a 78th minute header that brought out the best in Van der Sar.

As the minutes ticked by, the tension reached boiling point, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Thierry Henry spearheading their respective sides’ attempts. But try as they could, Barça just could not score, and the game drew to a close. They can go out of the competition with their heads held high, but it will be the Premiership side, and not FC Barcelona, that will be enjoying a trip to Moscow in May.

Barcelona kill Man Utd without scoring

Barcelona's Champions League Semi Final first leg game against Manchester United ended just minutes ago and now its time for a short summary.

Barca played their game and totally commanded the field with a possession higher than 65%. We contained the ball most of the time and the only reason the game ended 0-0 was the fact that our attack was lacking creativity.

Manchester had the chance to score from a penalty in the 3rd minute of the game but Cristiano Ronaldo sent the ball over the crossbar. The penalty was inflicted by the hand of Gabi Millito and actually was pretty obvious and undoubtful.

The game was full of fouls and the game often was stopped. There were yellow cards and lot's of tackles in the middle of the field. Both teams were playing carefully and while Barca was constantly on the attack , the Red Devils were counting on counter attacks organized by the fast Ronaldo.

Leo Messi was above all in tonight's game , organizing Barcelona's attacks and being the most dangerous played on the field. He was later substituted by Bojan and was loudly applauded by the fans.

Eto'o had bad luck and was unable to complete succesfully several good attacks that Barca's midfielders had organized.

Henry , who substituted Deco tried several shots but nothing serious came out of his feet.

This Champions League semi final cannot be remembered with anything significant and the only think we should hope is that Barcelona will have more luck next week at Old Trafford.

Henry shakes off fever and is ready to return

Thierry Henry spent today's morning training alone at Camp Nou in order to be ready to play against Manchester United and is set to join the rest of FC Barcelona's squad for the evening session.

With the first leg of the Champions League semi final approaching, Barca's head coach Frank Rijkaard was recovering most of his players and now Henry is set to be given the green light and play against the Red Devils. The Frenchman has missed two training session because of a severe fever, but he is now back and looked in good shape as he worked with the team's fitness coach - Albert Roca.


Three goals in this year's Champions League

This season, Henry has played in eight of Barcelona's ten Champions League games and has three goals. Two against Olympique Lyonnais and Rangers at Camp Nou and one at Parkhead against Celtic in the quarter finals.

Barca and Manchester United have similiar road to the semi-finals

Both FC Barça and Manchester United have reached their semi-final without facing any real difficulties and what is more interesting – they have statistically identical records in this year’s Champions League.

Two of Europe’s biggest football clubs are going head-to-head in one of the Champions League semi-finals super clashes. And in fact the Catalans and the Red Devils have taken absolutely identical routes to get there.

Eight wins out of ten games:

Both teams have deserved their way to the semi-finals having won 8 out of their 10 matches so far in this season’s Champions League. As if that weren’t enough, in the quarter finals both FC Barcelona and Manchester United won both the home and away legs against their opponents. The Catalans passed through Schalke (0-1, 1-0) while the Red Devils put out Roma (0-2, 1-0).

Unbeaten throughout the whole campaign:

As if that was not enough - neither side has lost a game so far in this year’s edition of the Champions League, drawing the two games they didn’t win. Barca drew in the group stage versus Lyon (2-2) and Glasgow Rangers (0-0), while Man United drew in their group with Roma (1-1) and in the away leg of their last 16 tie with Lyon (1-1).

Same goal records - amazing:

And if this was not convincing enough let me round things off by just saying that both Barcelona and Manchester United have absolutely equal goal records. Each of the teams have scored 18 goals and conceded 5 (only Chelsea is better – 4) so far.

I think all this is just a drop in the sea of reasons that points at this semi-final clash as one of the most anticipated ties the Champions League has ever seen.