Barcelona were lucky to get a draw against a spirited Mönchengladbach side as Pique popped up with a late winning goal in a tight fixture.
The match was started by Mönchengladbach with plenty of intent as they had an 11-game winning streak in their home ground and it was Thorgan Hazard (Eden Hazard’s younger brother) who was leading the attacking line.
The better chances in the opening minutes fell to Barcelona with Neymar’s shit being saved and Suarez hitting inches past the far post.
The finishing by Barcelona was rather wasteful as they continued to boss around with the ball and Mönchengladbach preferred to threaten on the break.
And Barcelona were punished for their poor finishing by Thorgan Hazard, who scored his 7th goal of the season after a good run and an assist by Raffael.
Thorgan Hazard has already impressed a lot of pundits and this was another example of his talent. 1 – 0. Game on!
The first half didn’t finish in Barcelona’s favour but they still managed to push forward in the 2nd half to search for an equaliser.
The equaliser eventually came 6 minutes after Suarez’s hot was saved and the goal was scored by Arda Turan, whose run was picked up by Neymar with a clever pass.
1 – 1. Barcelona were back in it.
It wasn’t until the 74th minute that Barcelona found their winning goal and it was scored by Gerard Pique after a Neymar corner was picked up low by Suarez and his saved shot fell to Pique, who had to poke home from 3 yards out.
2 – 1. The tides had turned.
Barça showed mettle and tried to go for a third goal but it wasn’t meant to be as Arda Turan tried to go for the spectacular by chipping the keeper but the keeper did some great work to parry it away for a corner.
There wasn’t much to report in the closing stages and Barcelona took away the tie with a fair amount of perseverance at display, even without Messi.
Mönchengladbach were impressive but it just want enough.
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