The weekend opening of the Spanish La Liga season proved to be a good start for FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Both teams were able to get wins in their opening matches and spectators view it as a good sign for the whole season. Sports commentators and avid fans of the Spanish Football League, La Liga perceives that FC Barcelona and Real Madrid are setting their dominance over their home turf with their opening weekend wins.
The growing dominance of Barcelona
With a score of 7-0, defending champion Barcelona took the win from Levante. The win of Barcelona over Levante is the first cutthroat match of Martino since he replaced Tito Vilanova. Barcelona’s home court win was a no brainer since all of its players performed at a very high pace. Lionel Messi led the bunch by scoring twice. Pedro Rodriguez did the same. The match was also the debut of Neymar da Silva Santos as a substitute. Barcelona showed its awesome power over the competition with manager Gerardo Lional as the new boss.
Setting the pace
Harsh as it may sound, Barcelona definitely pulverized Levante in their first match of the season. Some expected Levante to struggle while fighting the defending champions and the results only clarified the difference between the two teams.
Barcelona ferociously attacked its opponent. The team sought every possible means to scoring over Levante. Forward Sanchez took the first score while Argentine football superstar Messi got the second goal nine minutes after. Before the first half ended, Alves and Pedro doubled the score, leaving Levante with a six-point difference. Levante focused on the defense in the second half, but this backfired when the team incurred a defensive error. The error made by Levante’s players proved very fatal when Pedro got the seventh goal. Neymar made his first appearance after his transfer from Santos, but he was not able to produce a score in the remaining minutes of the game.
A close fight
Even though Real Madrid took the win against Real Betis on their first match, it took every ounce of talent they had to secure the match. Winning with a one point difference (2-1 score), Real Madrid proved to be the better team though they set the lead late in the game with the efforts of new midfielder Francisco “Isco” Alarcon. The team also had a new man in charge. Former Chelsea, AC Milan and Paris St-Germain manager Carlo Ancelotti is Real Madrid’s new manager.
Both teams showed remarkable opportunities to score in the first half of the game but scoring proved to be very difficult. Betis was able to get the first goal but failed to get a second one after Nosa Igiebor missed his header shot that unfortunately hit the home crossbar. The score tied to 1-1 when Madrid’s striker, Karim Benzema scored. After the half-time break, Madrid took the lead with Cristiano Ronaldo’s big shot. Igiebor’s Betis hoped to get a comeback score in the second-half with an aerial shot but to no avail.
Photo Credit: Lionel Messi
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