EYE ON LA LIGA : Being out of cup is blessing for Barca

It came as no shock (at least to the majority) that defending champions Barcelona were knocked out of this year’s Copa Del Rey at the hands of Sevilla. Going out of the competition, which is the equivalent of the England’s FA Cup, means that Pep Guardiola’s team can not repeat last year’s achievement of winning an unprecedented six trophies in a single season. Although Barcelona won 1-0 in Sevilla thanks to a goal from Xavi Hernandez, the two away goals Sevilla scored a week earlier in their 2-1 triumph in the Camp Nou was enough to see them side into the quarterfinals at the expense of the holders. Last season, the Catalan giants won every competition they entered, something that no other team had done before, and it was always going to be hard if not impossible to repeat such a feat. Last year, Barcelona made history. You can say they reached the top of the mountain and after reaching the top, you can only go down. No person in their right mind would expect a team to make history two years in a row, when no other team in La Liga or even the much hyped English Premier League has done it before. The Barca haters will most likely be happy because the best team on the planet (at least at the moment) was disqualified by arguably the third best team in La Liga while Real Madrid were disqualified by a club from the third tier moreover at the earlier stage. That said, Barcelona have already shown that they cannot do this year what they did last year and we all knew that pretty soon by the beginning of this season. My personal prediction is that they won’t even take the CL cup this year but they will win La Liga again. It will be a bonus for them to win more than one trophy this season.No team has won the Champions League two years in a row and I think that jinx will likely continue. Yet dropping out of a less glamorous cup competition will only serve Guardiola and his team the world of good as they’ll have fewer games to play, which represents less fatigue as they need to challenge for the major trophies in CL and La Liga. All teams, great or not, big or small, rich or poor have a projection life. Football, and for that matter all sports, has a recurring nature in that a team is able to generate tremendous form, greater play, and extraordinary results for a limited period of time before falling back to the drawing board. This is a basic principle of sports. One can only be the best for so long until age, complacency, and or injuries eventually catch up with them (said team) and someone else rises to become the best. It seems someone forgot to tell Barcelona. nku78@yahoo.com

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EYE ON LA LIGA : Being out of cup is blessing for Barca