All 11 players

Has to be Messi! Hands down he is the MAN, not just of the match lol.    But if I was to choose someone else....

The MOTM was clearly Kaka, he was the only player running on the field without fouling or diving, perhaps he never touched the ball or even got the ok to sub, but he played it safe.

Good game Kaka, nice style of sitting

Messi is an easy choice as always. Keita played real tough I think he would get my motmotm (man of the match other than Messi). Pique played pretty well too. Great stops although the back line didn't get tested very much

Lol Jun! Your alright man!

MOTM for me is Pep Guardiola and Wolfgang Stark. The first two men in ages to not put up with Mourinho's bull sh*t. Mou giving lip? Send him to his cage!

Messi scored both the goals. The first made possible by Afellay's great ball inside and Messi's effort to run into the box and to get onto the end of it. Afellay has many times been in the same situation with no one at the receiving end of his lighting runs down the flank but this time someone did and we got a goal out of it.

And then the 2nd goal. It was sublime just magic, ingenious one of the greatest goals of the whole season.

Many people questioned Messi's opposition on his goal against Getafe, you can't question the opposition on this one. It was a huge game too and a huge goal which could have won us the tie

Hard to say who was the -second- best, but there really is only one clear MOTM again. I don't even need to utter His Divine Name, you all know it.

My vote for second MOTM goes to:
* Xavi for once again being the puppet master and delivering great passes, making himself available to pass to always (in what was a difficult game) and making a few excellent forward runs.
* Piqué for his immaculate defensive contributions and his perfect passing. This was Piqué at his best, although he didn't have that much work.
* Puyol for keeping the likes of Ronaldo and Özil as tame as chickens after his long spell of injury.

What a team of legends we have

Yup deffenantly Messi gets MOTM
Rest of the team:
^Afelley once he was on the field he created a spark and barca started to do what they do best, that's score.
^Xavi did great even without iniesta by his side, he controlled everything going around him which was great.
^Pique deffinenantly put in a great game, I'm proud to see how far he's come after his major fall from deffending a few months back.
^Puyol did what he does best being a beast!
^Mascherano did great had a few mistakes but hey he can play pretty much anywhere you place him
^Alves is finally doing some deffending, letting the right forward do the work now.
^Busquets was a disgrace with his flopping around
^Pedro as well disgraceful
^Keita had a wonderful match
^Vales well thank god he's our @1 keeper
Am I missing anybody? =/ haha

^Yea! You completely ignored my comment!.... I'm devastated

^Yea! You completely ignored my comment!.... I'm devastated

*edit* ----why did this post twice? .... Perhaps it was 2 go 2 be left unseen

It has to be Messi. But a shout out to Affelay, Masch AND Adriano. Spectacular performances.

Joke of the Match goes to Milito lol. Almost the fastest red card I have ever seen lol

There are a few who really stood out today: Valdes, Dani, Adriano, Afellay and Messi. But because he decides the game yet again, and because he simply played very well, my vote goes to Leo.

Very pleased to see Afellay playing full of confidence though: I didn't expect him to be capable of doing what he does with Holland in Barcelona

I would say Afellay

I will go a different way and go with Adriano, I thought he had a stand out performance and was given some freedom and used it well. He had several great runs into the middle of the park and created a couple chances. I think Adriano won us the most fouls as well

Valdes had a few big saves today and did well. His reactions I think are getting better. Thing with Valdes's performance is that many of the shots were directed at him and he had to move maybe 2 steps to make the save. Nothing really bothered him

Afellay had a big game today too. He was really comfortable on the ball. He did pretty well positional wise. At the start of the match he was overlapping runs poorly but you could see his evolution throughout the game.

I would say he deserved that goal from his shot. Pyatov did great in goal today

Messi doesn't need to be spoken about. Well taken goal, dangerous runs.

There was the one very uncharacteristic through ball by Messi to Villa which he totally screwed up which was probably the worst thing Messi did all game

The reason why I wrote in 4/5 different posts is that it quadruple posted.... Thought I'd do something constructive with them

I'm right there with you BarcaShow, I'll give my vote to Adriano. (However not as many times as you did )

Adriano for me too. The thing with MotM is you can't give to the best player - that'll be Messi 9 times out of 10. The amazing thing about Adriano today was that he really played out of his skin, and imo gave a performance comparable to his counterpart Dani Alves

Could not agree more MWY. Adriano along with Affelay proved that our left side can be just as fruitful as our right. I can't wait for Affelay to play with Adriano some more.

Affelay Messi Pedro/Villa for at least one more game this season pretty please?

Messi, the rest played well but he was the decider

1. Messi - Sublime Runs  2. Valdes  3. Afellay    @chacon same here I would want to see that line up play once more.  

Was Messi the decider? I think Valdes was more influential in the scoreline.

At one point Shaktar had like 3 or 4 shots on net (10) in total while Barca only had 1 off target

Agreed, but then again that's what a high class keeper like Valdes does

Man of the Match was incredibly hard for me to pick as we had a mediocre game. I would have to give it to Messi who couldn't get anything to come his way for the longest time. Getting 2 goals and an assist to keep the 8 point lead headed into the Clasico

Man of the Match was incredibly hard for me to pick as we had a mediocre game. I would have to give it to Messi who couldn't get anything to come his way for the longest time. Getting 2 goals and an assist to keep the 8 point lead headed into the Clasico

I would agree with you its messi as man of hte match. Main reason he scored 2 goals and assisted the other so therefor he almost had his hat trick I just hope he keeps it up and keeps scoring!

Wops I repeated haha

It can only be Messi

This was a tough call but I'm gonna' go with Iniesta

Iniesta played extremely well! The goal right off the bat. Incredible pass to Dani for his goal. The list goes on. He played for his daughter and he played with all of his heart. Iniesta = MOTM imo

Iniesta, or Dani

I can't believe that we scored 5 goals and it wasn't our usual hooligans. That is truly a rocket launcher in Keitas foot.... That shot was impressive. Great game!

Yeah it's always hard to pick a man of the match for me as well, Everyone plays amazing all the time!

I think its Iniesta but Dani is really close too

It wasn't one of Iniesta's best performances yet he was still solid and deadly in attack. Alves made several poor decisions/errors in the first half before he scored so my vote is with Iniesta

Valdez! That save was soo clutch. He also had many other great ones. Mascherano stopped a lot of counters. I would say he is a close second

VV was the MOTM, or perhaps Masch or Iniesta, or Piqué for scoring the only goal of the game an keeping a clean sheet. The whole team played well, and what a scorching pace the whole game was played at! Our players must be tired as hell

I'll add my vote of Victor Valdes. Amazing anticipation and dependability from our keeper. Mascherano also deserves credit and I'm naming him warrior of the match

Valdes hands down. He won the game for us

Mascherano gets my Vote, he dominated

Mascherano gets my Vote, he dominated

Mascherano gets my Vote, he dominated

Quadruple post lol I guess it counts as 4 votes for Masch    If mods could get these that would be great

Sorry for the late header! I will do better next time. Lol I promise

For me our man of the match was Masherano. I think we say him play his best match so far for Barcelona

Daniel Alves. His goal, his passing, his covering, his pressing and positioning

Oh I don't its so hard to pick one. I say the ball for having such a wicked curve....

For offense its definitely Alves.... His goal was insane!

Masch comes at a close second.... He just gets better and better and better.... And better!

The man of the match tonight with no argument was Messi. But the second player I would say Adriano I was so impressed with his performance.

I think I'm going for Leo as well, but Andrés was excellent too. A few wonderful moves and passes in the first half and a stunning goal in the second. Time after time our team does so well, and time after time I almost can't believe my eyes.

Adriano, Masch and Puyol were excellent too. And so were Pedro and Villa really

Has to be Abidal. He could have played like crap (which he didn't) but he scored his first goal for Barca today and got us through the round

Abidal

Yeah, Abi IMO as well. Easily motm: defended like a hero, ran up the pitch well when he was in his left-back position and scored from that position. The rest were all pretty average. Pedro was good too, but his passing wasn't always accurate.
Villa was the disappointment of the game, and I think he knew that too when he was taken off

Abidal without a doubt. He was the best and most consistent player on the pitch today

Abidal all the way! Solid performance!

ABIDAL

Abidal was perfect plus he was the hero who got us through

Do I dare say Abidal? Abidal it is!

I can't choose between Pedro and Abidal. Abidal was great at defending and Pedro just for securing the points for us

I would go for Pedro

I think it's either Pedro or Alves. And since Pedro was one of our worst players in the first half while Alves looked up for it the whole game, I'm going for Alves. The first goal Pedro scored was a bit lucky too, but he has great sense of positioning himself to score

Thiago did great I wouldent say that he played worse then iniesta so I will vote for him

Pedro and alves did great too

Abidal was complete rubbish today Zeora sorry to disagree with you.
Pedro scored goals with Alves's assists, but everyone that was "supposed" to be a star was really boring to watch out there.

My vote goes to Thiago, he really impressed today far more than anyone else

For me it was Pedro for stepping it up when no one else could

Alves for me. Great energy, and he sustained it throughout the game, as I've long been wishing he'd be able to do. The rest benefited him for sure, don't know about the rest

The whole team played great

I want to give it to young Fontas very nervous but his teammates helped him through. Good in the second half good cover and good passing out of the back. I think we will keep him

Bojan, the super sub. He got a good opportunity and he grabbed it with both hands

Xavi the maestro of course!

I am gonna' give it to Pedro. Even though he can't score, he tries the hardest

I didn't watch the full game so it's presumptuous of me to vote

Iniesta

Xavi. For that pass. And the other one

César - Valencia's goalkeeper. If it wasn't for him we would've won by another big margin like last seasons. Why is it GKs are always so much better against us than against lesser teams? Is motivation that important for them?

@Jeroen When I used to keep, I was much better against strong teams because continuous shots on goal kept me on my toes. Sitting idle for half an hour and then springing to action is much harder. Maybe it's our incessant attacking that brings out the best in them?

For Barca it would have to be Messi. He was the only one worth watching

I vote Abidal. He was great this match. He sent in some really good crosses that should have turned into goals. His defending was good too!

That's about the only nice thing I can say almost about anyone this match.... Except for Messi

This is actually a really tough one for me.... I am inclined to say Messi since when he got on the game got exciting.... But it could have been Villa's goal that did that. No defenders had to do much. Valdes perhaps?

In a game like this, I'd say Villa

I have to say Iniesta. His run that got us the penalty he was great going foward.... Its clear....

Imo Messi did great but I think he was told to be careful too even though he came in and the tempo changed a bit

Villa yes he got the goal but otherwise not much.

Everything else could have been better but Iniesta was our spark of lgiht if he didn't do his Messi run we would have left with a lost. If he didn't do his Xavi passes our chances would have been at a minimun.... Well besides the ones coming the great Xavi himself. Oh and that last shot he took that looked like it was going to bend in the cornor post.... So close....

I think Pep made wrong decisions in lineup this time.

But MOTM goes to Iniesta for me.

It's not one of our players, unless it would be Messi who single-handedly changed the style of the game. Or Iniesta now that I think of it, haha.

I would say their goalkeeper, or that defender Navas. Their entire team did well to cope with our lethal team, but the blame we didn't take 3 pts has to be found in our own team. We kept playing the same, as always, and although that's definitely acceptable at the end of the season to maintain consistency, I wouldn't have done it so early in the season now if I was Pep. Right now in the group phase, we can definitely take some more risks and attempt new playing styles if needed.
I'd train the team on passing around, and especially forward, quicker, so that we can at least attempt to dizzy the opponent with almost counter-like football: quick forward passes, overlaps, rushes forward. Such a high-paced game is almost opposite to what we bring, but I'm sure our player could switch to such a style when trained to do so with ease. And it would be an invaluable new asset to cope with incredibly defensive teams that bug us time and again

I was hoping for the same thing too, we already know how to move the ball around an control the game very well. We need to venture out and do thing other teams don't expect us to do. Making the pace of the game faster is the best way to catch them off guard, swift counter-attacks, intelligent one-touch passing, etc. With the way things are going I'm sure we are going to face many walls this season. We need to find a way out of this, a plan be of sorts.

Coming back to the MOTM, I have to say Iniesta - he was always looking for those one-touch passes, dancing runs into the box, through balls. He did all he could to change the game and IMO he worked really hard to make that difference. At the end of injury time, when Iniesta got into the box after numerous one-two's and shot - Priceless, just hope that had gone in though