Marking the 50th anniversary of Barcelona’s home ground, the Nou Camp, Barcelona posted an impressive win to secure three vital points for their pursuit of the La Liga title. Ronaldinho was a no show against Sevilla with an injury, so Lionel Messi took the spotlight instead, scoring both goals for his side giving Barcelona a 2-1 win over their opposition. Unfortunately for Barca and especially Victor Valdez, a clean sheet was not to be part of the game. Sevilla’s goal came late on the stroke of full time with a mix up at the back by the Barca defence.

Many Opportunities But No Goal

The first half brought with it wave after wave of Barca attack, with opportunities coming thick and fast for Messi and in particular Henry. He had to wait until the second half until he could get a decent chance on goal, with exceptional touch to bring a long ball under control using the outside of his foot and then slotted it past the keeper to find the upright. Now that I think about it, Henry has been denied a goal by the woodwork many times this season, with is a little cruel for the Frenchman, but with constant effort I’m sure he will overcome this little voodoo hanging over him.

Photo by Jasper Juinen/Getty Images

Messi Guarantees Barcelona Will Take The Points

Messi became the hero of the game with a spectacular touch to flick the ball up from a Henry pass and finished with a thundering volley into the bottom corner. This kind of shot is extremely hard to stop. By watching the replays, you can make out that Messi’s eyes never once leave the ball all the way to contact, and that’s how you’re supposed to volley. You can see the goal and the highlights below. Only 4 minutes later in the 77th minute, young Giovani Dos Santos was brought down in the box while anticipating a cross. Leo Messi stepped up to take his first penalty kick for Barca and slotted the ball away calmly. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, Barca went down one goal in injury time, with a great display of strength by the Sevilla attacker Kanoute, he was able to lob the ball over the keeper. Highlights below.

Ronaldinho Injured

The only thing missing from this win was the best player in the world. Having missed this game due to a right calf strain, he attended the Nou Camp this morning to see what treatment was in order for him and his future. The medical staff are now monitoring his progress and it all depends on how quickly Ronnie can heal up for the next game. Here’s to hoping he does quickly and in time.

Ronaldinho and his team began their Champions League campaign at home in front of their fans in the Camp Nou, in exciting fashion, posting a respectable 3-0 result against visiting French side, Lyon. The stars of the show were Messi and Henry. Strangely enough, the captaincy changed three times from Ronaldinho, to Xavi and then to goal keeper Victor Valdez, due to substitutions. On a personal note, I had to get up at 4:30 am to watch this game

Barcelona Start Strong

They came out wanting to win and kept pressuring the Lyon defence with wave after wave of attack. The attacking trident of Henry, Ronaldinho and Messi worked together to cause havoc at the front. The Barca winger Abidal was a constant threat with crosses into the middle which also gave the Lyon back line a difficult job to clean up.

Messi Reeks Havoc

The constant dropping of his left shoulder to cut the ball on the inside finally paid off for the Argentinian when he sent a ball into the middle to find it deflected off the Lyon defender, Clerc, to find the back of the net. In the 37th minute, Ronaldinho cut a clever ball back on the inside and then lobbed the ball over to Messi who switched it back and shot to find the defender come in to hit the ball away. You can see this in the highlights below.

Henry Makes His Debut Appearance and Goal

What a way to start out his UEFA Champions League campaign for Barcelona. With the introduction of the young gun Dos Santos, Henry was able to open up his game with some quick two touch football. In the 91st minute, Dos Santos went down the right hand side to take the ball past the Lyon defender and kicked up more grass than hit the ball, which parried by the keeper went to Henry who slotted the ball past two defenders to score. The relief was apparent on his face. And so Frank Rijkaard and his men came out victorious and look forward to their next La Liga match against Sevilla, which should be a competitive match.

It’s been a very long time since I last posted on this blog and for that reason I send out my apologies to those loyal readers who check the site regularly for updates. There is a reason for all this absence. For the past week I have been without an Internet connection and for that reason I haven’ t been able get online to post some new stuff and talk about Ronaldinho. Speaking of Ronaldinho, I just saw the Barcelona vs Lyon UEFA Champions League match, where Ronaldinho played a mediocre part and was subbed off, but I will post about that game later on in the day. For those that didn’t know, it was Barca’s first Champions League match for the season, after consecutive goalless draws in La Liga.

What’s Been Happening?

On a personal note, I have begun my off-season training regime, which targets all aspects of my game, in particular fitness. It’s a five day a week setup with adequate rests between exercises. With training schedules, you need equipment, so I’ve had to order $100 worth of new equipment to barely cover the exercises and drills that will help me along my way. The training regime I’ve got is rather intense and leaves me sweating like a waterfall every time (sorry about that image). I have yet to wear my 10R Ronaldinho Boots, which I bought last month, which is a shame. However, it gets me thinking about the first match I had last season, where I played in my black Ronaldino 10R Boots and when I came on, within 5 minutes I stuffed up my wrist. I actually just read that entry and it brings back bad memories.

To The Future We Look

I have received many emails regarding video’s of how to do the tricks in my book, and I am glad to say that it is something that I am looking forward to working on for the future of this website. In that case, I will probably have the book and accompanying videos in one package for those who really want to Be Like Ronaldinho. I’m actually pretty excited about that. I am also looking to creating an exercise regime for those of you who want to train by yourself and dazzle the competition by next season. This is all about helping others become great players like Ronaldinho and with this blog, I feel as though I can make a difference. On that note, look out for my match report on the Barcelona vs Lyon game in the next few hours.

The main reason I started this blog back in March was to teach others how to play football like Ronaldinho. This meant I would have to create some sort of guide to help footballers visiting this website understand the various secrets and techniques that Ronnie has in his repertoire. I’ve done this with the Be Like Ronaldinho Book and I must say I’m glad with what has been produced, however, it brings me to point of asking, is imitating someone really the best way to go if you want to be a great player?

At First Yes, Later On No

Yes because, by imitation you learn a wonderful technique that has taken this footballer 10+ years to learn. Later on, when you’ve mastered this technique imitation becomes something that you cannot go back to, because as a footballer it is your duty to come up with new and exciting plays, without having to borrow off other players. This is what can make you a truly great footballer, the idea of individuality. Personally, I love to please a crowd of fans because they’ve come to watch a great game of football being played out and if I can show them skills that have taken me countless hours to perfect that’s great, but when I show them something they haven’t seen before, at any level, then that’s something special I have and you can too.

Ronaldinho vs Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Both are my favourite players and both do the Elastico as one of their trademark moves. Now, both have varied styles of executing this technique and both ways I have seen are rather effective. At one stage or another, both had to imitate this move to get it right, but then after mastering the technique, they added their own little touch to it. Zlatan like to run along the sideline when doing this whereas Ronaldinho likes to pull this move off near the corners and the goal line, with near stationary position. Like I said before if it works for them and it will work for you also. If you imitate, then put your own spin on it, the crowd will love you for it because they’re seeing something new. But nothing beats a technique you’ve come up with all by yourself, but I’ll leave that one for another time. For now, here’s a video of Zlatan and Ronaldinho, showcasing their differences and similarities.

Barcelona remained undefeated after their match with Athletic Bilbao at the Nou Camp, which played out yesterday. Ronaldinho was by far the star of the show with a couple of goals in the bag, both off of set plays. Barcelona came into this match with a draw to start of the season and so they needed to produce results for the fans most of all. Coach Rijkaard did say that Bilbao has always been a hard team to overcome and so it was great to see Barca triumph. As I said before, Ronaldinho came out the main protagonist of the win with two goals and the new recruit Toure Yaya keeps impressing with a thunderous strike late in the game to find the cross bar, hit the ground on what looked like the goal side of the line and the referee concurred to give him the benefit of the doubt. Now whether it crossed the line or not is something you can judge for yourself, with the video I have provided below.

Ronaldinho’s Goals

Watching Ronaldinho’s free kick in particular shows me the amount of practice that he puts into his set plays. The sheer power and accuracy is a testament to his tenacity to keep perfecting his game. From a viewers perspective, you can see that his mind is purely set on playing good football and it shows through the quality of his strikes and plays. It seems as though the break he asked for from the Copa America that was played a few months ago has really impacted him in a good way and was exactly what the doctor ordered. I hope that he keeps up this great display of football and does us, his fans, proud.