Barcelona

Barcelona demolished Malaga 6-0 at the Nou Camp with an irresistible display of attacking football that re-established their six-point lead at the top of the Primera Liga on Sunday.



Samuel Eto'o scored twice, taking his league tally for the season to 25, while Xavi, Thierry Henry, Daniel Alves and Lionel Messi weighed in with one apiece against their overly cautious visitors.

The leaders have 69 points with 10 matches left to play, six ahead of chasing Real Madrid, who were earlier led to a 3-0 victory at home to Almeria by two-goal Klaas Jan Huntelaar.

Barca midfielder Xavi burst through on to Eto'o's pass to open the scoring after 19 minutes and Messi beat three men with a dash off the right flank to net high at the near post in the 25th.

Xavi fed Henry to round the goalkeeper and then Eto'o to make it 4-0 before the break but the hosts did not ease off.

Andres Iniesta floated a pass into the area for Alves to loop a header over a stranded Inaki Goitia in the 51st and, soon after, Henry unselfishly squared for Eto'o to grab his second.

At the Bernabeu, Marcelo opened the scoring for Real with a thunderous strike after 24 minutes but his team failed to spark until after the break.

Dutchman Huntelaar volleyed a poor defensive clearance high into the net after 53 minutes, and sealed the side's 12th league win in 13 from a loose ball, after Arjen Robben's run and shot was blocked.

Sevilla are third with 54 points and Villarreal fourth with 48 after both won their home matches on Saturday.

Ten-man Valencia won their first game since the beginning of February when Juan Mata netted late on for a 1-0 victory at Racing Santander.

Unai Emery's side had had defender Alexis sent off at the start of the second half and survived a last-minute penalty from Racing which Oscar Serrano blasted against the crossbar.

Valencia are sixth with 43 points behind Atletico Madrid on goal difference, with Atletico visiting Real Mallorca in Sunday's late game.

At the foot of the table, Javad Nekounam's last-minute header gave Osasuna a 1-0 home win over Espanyol that moved them up to 17th on 29 points, pushing Mallorca into the bottom three on goal difference.

Numancia, who beat Sporting Gijon 2-1 at home are 19th with 26 points, four ahead of Espanyol.

Daniel Alves rubbishes Move to Chelsea

Barcelona defender Daniel Alves has denied he has any interest in a move to Chelsea after a British newspaper claimed he was eager to join the club in the summer.
Since moving to the Nou Camp, Alves has carved out a reputation as one of the best attacking right-backs in the world.

But the player, who came close to moving to Stamford Bridge two years ago, has now come out and issued a statement denying any interest in a move to the Premier League club.

Alves has three years left on a contract which includes a release clause of 90 million euros. The Daily Mirror suggested Chelsea may be willing to pay £27m but that seems unlikely to tempt one of their European rivals to part with a crucial player.

The 25-year-old former Sevilla wing-back is also said to be interesting Manchester City, who are linked with just about every player of note in world football.

Alves' media representatives released a statement claiming the 25-year-old right-back intends to see out the remainder of his contract at the Nou Camp and denied an article published in the Daily Mirror newspaper in which sources close to the player revealed he wishes to move to London.



"Daniel Alves knows about the interest of the London club today through the article in the ... tabloid,'' the statement read. "A denial is important in order to not give the wrong impression on this matter.''

Chelsea's interest seems doubtful considering the impressive debut season from Portugal international Jose Bosingwa.

Lionel Messi The best Young Player

If any player can be said to be the natural successor to Diego Maradona, then surely it must be Lionel Messi.

Born in 1987, he signed for Barcelona from Newell's Old Boys of Argentina at 13 years of age, and since that time Messi has been marked for super stardom. But for a niggling succession of injuries, he surely would have been a Ballon D'Or winner by now.



What has always singled out 'Leo' as being special is his ability to dribble at speed with the ball under perfect control. Although primarily a winger, he can play more central or even deeper but, whatever his position, when he has the ball at his feet, the fans always expect something special from him.
Since scoring his first league goal for Barça in May, 2005 Messi has become a talisman for the team – his modest attitude off the pitch and his constant praising of the work of his team mates ensuring that the fans always hold him in the highest esteem.

Life wasn't always easy for Messi, though, despite his prodigious talent. As a youngster, Lionel suffered from a growth preventing hormonal disorder – Barcelona helped tempt him to Spain by paying for his medical treatment. This short stature, ironically, has enabled Leo to have that low centre of gravity that enables him to weave through defences.

Despite being wooed by the Spanish national team, Messi has always been eager to represent the country of his birth – he was voted player of the tournament in the Under 20 World Cup in 2005, where he was also top goal scorer. In the 2007 Copa America he was voted young player of the tournament. He was not afraid to let it be known how desperate he was to represent Argentina in the 2008 Olympic Games and although Barcelona appeared reluctant at first to release him, he ultimately helped Argentina win the gold medal – creating the only goal of the final in the process.

Playing for the national team hasn't brought constant success, however. On his international debut, against Hungary in 2005, Messi came on as substitute in the second half and was sent off 40 seconds later – allegedly elbowing the defender who was tugging his shirt to hold him back. Then, in the 2006 World Cup, Pekerman, the coach, was the subject of immense criticism from fans because of his seeming reluctance to play Messi in what was, for the Argentines, a disappointing tournament.

And those Maradona comparisons? Well, the great man himself did say at one point that Messi was his natural heir. And if you want to see a carbon copy of the 'hand of God' goal then search on You Tube for Messi's 'goal' in June, 2007 – against Espanyol in a local derby, would you believe!





While you're there, though, remind yourself as well of the goal against Getafe in the Copa del Rey, when the little maestro picked the ball up and ran through just about the whole team to round the keeper and score. If that doesn't bring back memories of Maradona then nothing will.

Despite the comparisons, Lionel Messi isn't the second Maradona. A modest, cool-headed, softly-spoken personality, Lionel Messi never seems to find himself in the gossip columns. Instead, he just gets on with the job of trying to be as good a footballer as he can be: and that is as good as any forward player in the world game.

Lionel Messi is a great player in his own right. And he can only get better.