Mallorca 0 - 1 Barcelona

Even though we won this match, I have to give praise to Mallorca since they played great football and managed to keep us at bay. They live up to their reputation at home and we had to work for the win.
But all said and done Ibra's lone goal was enough to see us through and place us at top of the table ahead of the Madrid vs Atletico match-up.

Ibra's 63rd min goal from a corner saw us through today but it could have been a different story for Gregorio Manzano's men if Aritz Aduriz's thunderbolt had gone in instead of rattling the woodwork, but we have to keep in mind that we were playing a team who have won 12 of 13 matches at home coming into this game, having only lost to Sevilla previously.

We knew this match was going to be a tough one, and the only thing that matters was taking all 3-points from them if were to continue our hopes of winning the La Liga.

We started without both Messi and Xavi who were both benched keeping in mind the big midweek champions league game against Arsenal and Xavi just coming back after an injury.
 We had a nervy start with Artiz thunderbolt hitting the woodwork early, although Valdes did well to recover and stop the following strike from Castro.At the 12th min we had a goal from Pedro dis-allowed for being fractionally off-side.Mallorca did well in denying Ibra a goal towards the 24th minute and gave us a pre-halftime scare with another shot hitting the wood-work.  We ended the first half with the scoreline at nil-nil.

Pep wasted no time in the second half by bringing in both Messi for Iniesta and Xavi for Yaya Toure with the changes in place Barca were able to open the scoring in the 63rd min with a corner taken by Xavi then played down towards goal by the captain himself Puyol and with Ibra on hand to steer the shot in goal we were able to take the lead. With this goal Ibra had taken his goal tally for this season to 15 with 3 goals in the last 3 matches. Ibra is still finding it hard to find his feet on the field but I think he might have just got enough confidence to some how pull his socks up for the blockbuster line up's we have in store over the next few weeks.Towards the end we should have atleast got in one more goal with a strike from Messi being denied by the Mallorca goalie.




End of the day the result is what counts and it was a favorable one for Barca. Hope we regain some of the form we had seen over the past few weeks and get our goal scoring boots back.

Forca Barca !!!

Match Stats
	Mallorca	Barcelona
Shots (on Goal)	10(2)	7(5)
Fouls	29	21
Corner Kicks	4	8
Offsides	1	6
Time of Possession	31%	69%
Yellow Cards	4	3
Red Cards	0	0
Saves	4	2

Match Information
Stadium:	ONO Estadi, Spain
Attendance:	18,000
Match Time:	March 27, 2010
Official(s):	David Fernández Borbalán (Referee)