FC Barcelona put up good show in Pretoria, South Africa.


A spirited show by South African clubside, Memlodi Sundowns was not enough to stop FC Barcelona from triumphing over their Pretorian hosts in a friendly match played amid International Charity spotlight.
The South Africans started the match on a very high note, eager to display they could match Barca skill-for-skill and quickly went ahead after just two minutes into game with a well delivered ball from Surprise Moriri.


Teammate, Patrick Apataki followed suit after the goal with spearheading another attack that was curtailed by Barcelona. This however did not stop Sundowns from maintaing pressure on their Catalan visitors, hoping to put the match beyond the Spanish giants in as early as the first 20 minutes.

Barcelona offered responses through effectively reorganising their network to absorb the attack of the charged South Africans who were inspired by their home crowd with cheers and loud vocal support.


After a supposedly courteous display of allowing their hosts some good playing time and show of skill, FC Barcelona roared to life and quickly cordinated an attack through Ronaldinho that saw striker Samuel Eto'o miss an opportunity to level scores.
Barca re-formatted the game from then on and dictated the pace, knocking the ball around in spectacular fashion to the delight of the home crowd, who had come out in their thousands to catch a glimpse of the star-studded FC Barcelona squad.

Barca's midfield engineered a spectacular move that saw creative midfielder, Ludovic Giuly scoring from an orchestrated move, but the goal was disallowed by the centre Referee.


The Catalans continued to change the structure of the game to further confuse their opponents and came close to scoring on some occassions, but for the good goal-keeping of the Sundowns goalie, more goals would have come before the break.


The second half saw Barca coach, Frank Rijkaard making changes to the team, which added more pressure on Memlodi Sundowns with skillful displays from Barca's team players.
Santi Ezquerro and liverpool interest, Marc Crosas produced some good moments upfront for Barcelona.

The hosts also responded with beautiful coordination between the likes of Josta Dladla and Brent Carelse and upfront, Manqoba Ngwneya and Dillon Sheppard produced some close shaves and almost scored again for the Sundowns, but that was not to be.


The Balugrana continued to control and dictate the pace of the game, till in the 78th minute, youthful Andres Iniesta broke lose and displaced the South African players to release a tricky grounder that was blocked. The rebounder was well taken by Ezquerro who drove the ball into the net for the equalizer.


Barca quickly took charge of affairs after the Africans restarted the game, maintaining ball possession and in a matter of four minutes after the equalizer, registered another goal.
Ronaldinho made a superb run into the Memlodi area, breezing into the penalty area and laying a perfect pass to young junior team player, Marc Crosas who easily displaced the South African goalkeeper with intelligent soccer skills before finishing off his wonderful move with a goal-Barcelona's second and the winning goal of the match.


The friendly encounter was held to generate proceeds toward the benefit of the poverty-stricken kids in Third World countires.

FC Barcelona, as a matter of club poilcy have continued to identify with the deprived and neglected poor people of the world, especially children. In recognition of this, the Blaugrana are official UNICEF partners.


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