Barça Alusport won the first game of the league semifinal at Fontes do Sar. Barça, who were 3-0 down at one stage, reacted well before half-time. The defence was key to the fightback.
Match Stats
XACOBEO LOBELLE, 4
FC BARCELONA ALUSPORT, 7
Xacobeo Lobelle (3+1): Álex, David, Rafael (1), Alemão, Diego (1) -starting five-
Aicardo (1), Palmas, Rubi, Pola, Raúl Campos (1), Charlie.
FC Barcelona Alusport (1+5): Sedano, Torras (2), Lin (2), Saad (1), Fernandão
(1)-starting five- Ari Santos (1), Carlos Muñoz, Javi Rodríguez, Igor.
Goals: 1-0, Diego, min 2; 2-0, Raúl Campos, min 3; 3-0, Rafael, min 8; 3-1, Ari
Santos, min 17; 3-2, Fernandão, min 22; 3-3, Lin, min 24; 4-3, Aicardo, min 26; 4-4, Lin, min 30;
4-5, Torras, min 35; 4-6, Saad, min 38 and 4-7, Torras, min 38.
Referees: Cuesta Sánchez and García Morón.
The objective was achieved, winning away at Xacobeo Lobelle, in Fontes do Sar, a key milestone to
take the tie back to Barcelona and take the historic step towards the League Final. Barca Alusport
didn’t start the game well. In fact, they found themselves 3 goals down in the opening
minutes of the game. They were all aware that they couldn’t daydream, but they did.
Fortunately, however, they reacted in time and finally won the game 7-4. Next Friday the return leg
will be played in the Palau and this is the first opportunity for Carmona’s team to become
finalists in the League.
What shouldn’t happen did
In a blink of an eye, Xacobeo Lobelle threw caution to the wind. Diego and Raul
Campos had the Barça defence in trouble and Paco Sedano couldn’t do much to avoid the 2-0
start. Marc Carmona called a time-out to re-shape his team, but his instructions fell on stony
ground and Rafael scored to make it 3-0, 5 minutes later. Fortunately, this goal helped Barça to
start over again. Barça were playing more calmly now and towards the end of the first half, Ari
Santos reduced the differences by scoring a penalty to make it 3-1.
The best Barça Alusport
The team dynamic at the end of the first half carried on after the restart.
Applying more defensive pressure, Fernandao found the way to beat Alex, the Xacobeo goalkeeper, and
scored Barça’s 2nd goal, a goal that fired up the team, and Lin scored again to make it 3-3.
Playing well and moving the ball better, Barça were well on top. At the back, Sedano also
grew in confidence and thwarted the home teams efforts. However, although Xacobeo had lost some of
the intensity they started with, the game wasn’t over, and that was proved to be the case
when. Aicardi got the crowd going by making it 4-3.
The panorama had changed though, and Lin picked up the ball from a Jordi Torras free-kick to
score the equaliser. 'Spider Lin’ was on fire, and Torras was not far behind, and raced down
the wing to score with a cross shot to make it 5-4. With less than 5 minutes to go Barça had taken
the game by the scruff of the neck and didn’t let go.
Xacobeo exhausted all their options and sent on Rafael as rush goalkeeper with 3 minutes to
go. The risk didn’t pay off and Saad made it 6-4, and the 7th goal came from a quick attack
led by Saad, who crossed for Torras to score.