Z/Web

Wow, what a game. Zillions of goals. Don’t know that I’ve ever seen a soccer game quite like this one. Villareal came out storming, fulling intending to put a lock on the came early. They scored three goals in twenty minutes! Former Barca player Victor got the first one eleven minutes in, followed by Calleja seven minutes later. Victor added another in the twentieth minute. It looked like it was all Villareal, but then Kluivert got one in the 38th minute and Barca was awarded a penalty kick in the dying minutes of the first half. Rivaldo stepped up to take the kick and I was positive the score was going to be 3-2. But Rivaldo missed! His rebounded off the base of the post! After that brush with danger, Villareal looked like they would survive as Barca squandered chance after chance. But early in the second half Kluivert managed another, and then Rivaldo scored himself on about the hour mark, tying the score and making up for his missed penalty. But the game was by no means over. Villareal went up again just five minutes later, when Lopez scored after Palermo whiffed on his shot. As time ran out it looked like Villareal would get the three points for sure. The game went into injury time, one, two, then three minutes passed. There were just seconds left. Barca was still pushing hard, when, amazingly, Kluivert managed to score his third to complete his hat trick and give Barca a valuable road point. Wow, eight goals in one game! Final: 4-4.

Does it make sense to insult your opponent before playing them? Probably not. It doesn’t do you any good and it can only hurt you. No doubt Deportivo’s coach regrets his critical comments on Leeds before this game. His team was roasted. Ian Harte scored just 26 minutes in off a wonderful free kick, and Smith and Ferdinand added to the total in the second half. Deportivo hardly had a shot on Leeds’ goal all night. They’ll have a tough job scoring more than three goals against Leeds at home. Final: 3-0 Leeds.