Barcelona easily gets past Zagreb

 

Barcelona have a certain of making things easier for themselves on Satuday nights. After inflicting Celje their biggest ever Champions League defeat last season, the Spanish side threatened to do the same with Zagreb tonight.

 

GROUP A

HC PPD Zagreb (CRO) vs FC Barcelona (ESP) 19:36 (9:21)

 

If you’d seen how Barcelona had beaten Celje last week, they started the game in Zadar in similar fashion. The Croatian side did not score for nine minutes at the beginning and, eleven minutes in, they was already down by seven.

 

A time-out taken by Veselin Vujovic for his first game back on the bench for Zagreb, could not change much, as Barcelona were making the most of the hosts’ turnovers. Things did not improve afterwards, as Aitor Arino scored twice in the empty goal before Victor Tomas helped FCB get past the ten goal gap at the 20th minute. At half-time, it seemed like Zagreb, who trailed by twelve, would have a hard time turning things around.

 

Things did not improve for the hosts after the break, as Gonzalo Perez de Vargas proved to be unstoppable in the first minutes of the half. Only conceding one goal in the first ten minutes, the Spanish goalkeeper take as much as a 17 goals advantage.

 

At some point, it looked like the biggest defeat ever suffered by Zagreb in the Champions League could be matched, or worse, beaten.In the end though that did not end up happening, as Zagreb finally found some solutions in attack, thanks to Aleksander Spende. This, of course, was not enough to turn the score around and Barcelona safely cruised to their second straight victory of the season.