Goals from Giovani dos Santos, Iniesta and Ronaldinho gave Barça an easy win in the first game of their Asian tour. After just nine minutes Eto’o found Xavi in space and his pass was finished well by Giovani who curled a left foot shot past the keeper. The rest of the first half was a pretty dull. Thierry Henry was a bit disappointing, playing on the left wing he showed signs of his undoubted class but nothing really came off. He had two chances to score at the end of the first half; first a great pass from Xavi put him clean through, but his left footed drive was well saved by the keeper. Then he volleyed wide with his right foot after Eto’o had surged into the area.

Things livened up a bit in the second half, mainly through the excellent contribution from Ronaldinho who played through the middle with Eto’o on the right and Giovani on the left. Beijing Guoan also created a lot more in the second half and in the 51st minute came close to an equalizer when their forward Tiago hit the outside of the post.

Barça made it 0-2 in the 58th minute, Motta crossed from the left to Eto’o who controlled brilliantly with his chest and then hit a thunderous shot against the post, the ball flew out to Iniesta who touched it to Ronaldinho and his pass set up Eto’o again with another chance, this time Eto’o unselfishly passed across the goal to Iniesta who timed his run perfectly and had the simplest of tap-ins.

Ronaldinho scored the third after 77 minutes hitting a fine free kick from 30 yards past the goalie who probably should have done more to stop it. Maxi Lopez, back in a Barça shirt, should have made it four when Ronaldinho set him up with five minutes to go, but his shot was well saved by the keeper.

Víctor Valdés was rested which meant a debut for Oier in the second half. The best Barça performances for me, in this order, were from: Xavi, Ronaldinho, Touré, Giovani, Thuram, Eto’o, Abidal, Iniesta.

 You can see the goals here: www.101greatgoals.com

The team was:  Jorquera (Oier, 45); Zambrotta (Marc Crosas, 67), Oleguer (Marc Valiente, 82), Thuram, Abidal (Sylvinho, 45); Xavi (Dimas, 86), Toure (Motta, 45), Iniesta (Olmo, 79); Giovani (Ezquerro, 75), Eto’o (Maxi López, 71) , Henry (Ronaldinho, 45).