Match Report: Wednesday 01/02/2006 22:00pm
Copa del Rey, Quarter Final 2nd leg

FC Barcelona – Real Zaragoza
Camp Nou, Barcelona – attendance: 60,000 Culés


1-0 Messi ´41

1-1 Óscar ´66
2-1 Larsson ´90


FC Barcelona (4-3-3): Jorquera – Oleguer, Marquez (Sylvinho ´46), Puyol, Gio (van Bommel ´78) – Iniesta, Edmilson, Deco, - Giuly (Larsson ´66), Messi, Ronaldinho – Manager: Frank Rijkaard





Barça is out of the Cup, despite beating Zaragoza 2-1 at the Nou Camp. The 4-2 defeat in the first leg proved too big a mountain to climb, especially when they where forced to play ffor nearly an hour after Ronaldinho was sent off on the 37th minute. The unjustified Ronaldinho sending off by referee Julián Rodríguez Santiago was surely the crucial turning-point in this match. Barça was let down by the ref´s poor decision but never gave up in their search for the two goal win. The Catalan team soon started to impose their rhythm and pressing style on the game limiting Zaragoza to pure defending, whilst looking to make quick counter attacks. On 19 minutes, Barça came close to a 1-0 lead, when Milito cleared a Marquez effort off the line and Giuly smacked the rebound onto the post. Soon later Ronaldinho and Marquez came close again, before Zaragoza tested Jorquera with two quick counter attacks but the Barça keeper pulled off two excellent reflex saves to thwart Cani´s and later Ewerthon´s efforts.

Then in the 37th minute of the match the ref made the fatal error by showing Ronaldinho a red card after a foul in midfield. Just 5 minutes later Lionel Messi showed the team's character, heading home a Giuly cross to reduce the aggregate difference to a single goal.
60,000 Culés cheered and applauded the players off at half time, hoping for a dramatic turn around in the second half.

Barça continued to dominate by pressing 11-man Zaragoza into defense and Iniesta came close, hitting the post with a long range shot. As Barça pushed forward for the second goal, the referee again got involved in controversy, when he failed to show a second yellow card to Ponzio for a nasty tackle from behind on Deco.
Zaragoza, who committed a total of 30 fouls during the game, would certainly have been in serious trouble had the referee made the correct decision and reduced Zaragoza to ten men.

Just as Barça seemed closest to breaking the Zaragoza resistance; out of nowhere Oscar appeared from left and his shot left Jorquera with no chance. On 66 minutes, Larsson came for Giuly to bolster the Barça attack and the Swedish striker came close to hitting the back of the net almost immediately. Messi was everywhere, the young Argentinean constantly causing problems for the Real Zaragoza defense. The team did not let up as they streamed forward to try and get the goals they needed, but Larsson's injury time goal came just too late.
Zaragoza goes through to the semi-finals, wining both legs 5-4 on aggregate and will play Real Madrid. We saw a Barça team with character and fighting spirit on an evening that ultimately ended in disappointment.


My Opinion:

The disastrous performance of the Referees in both matches decided this quarterfinal encounter. 2 goals, clearly offside, given to Zaragoza in the first leg and again two fatal errors from the referee by sending off Ronaldinho and not sending off Argentinian Ponzio made it too difficult to progress to the semi finals:

Real Zaragoza + 2 Referees 5 – FC Barcelona 4