Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Barca Downs Atletico, Messi Injured

From FIFA.com:

"Barcelona put their poor recent record at the Vicente Calderon behind them to end Atletico Madrid's 100% start to the Primera Division season - but there was an injury scare for Lionel Messi.

Barça had lost their three previous league visits to Atletico's home 2-1, 4-3 and 4-2 but they deservedly earned all three points on this occasion thanks to first-half goals from Messi and Gerard Pique. Atletico had managed to equalise through Raul Garcia but they can have few complaints about the result and finished the game with 10 men when defender Tomas Ujfalusi was sent off late on following a challenge on Messi.

Messi was carried off on a stretcher after that to be replaced by Bojan Krkic and Barça will be keeping their fingers crossed the reigning FIFA World Player of the Year has not suffered a serious injury. The result means Atletico, having started the season superbly with a UEFA Super Cup win over Inter Milan and back-to-back league victories, have now lost twice in four days following Thursday's UEFA Europa League defeat against Aris.

For Barça though it was another impressive performance following their 5-1 midweek UEFA Champions League mauling of Panathinaikos, and gets them back on track in La Liga after their shock 2-0 home defeat to Hercules last weekend."