Wisla Krakow 3 Barcelona 4
Barcelona thanked their Brazilian play-maker Rivaldo for keeping them in the Champions League hunt tonight as he contributed a hat-trick to secure a 4-3 win at Poland's Wisla Krakow in their third preliminary round first leg encounter.
Rivaldo has been at the heart of a club versus country tug-of-war this week as Brazil wanted him to play in their friendly against Panama, a warm-up for their vital World Cup qualifier against Paraguay next week.
Barcelona, desperate not to miss out on the prestige - not to say the money - of a place in the opening group phase refused to release him and their stubbornness paid off as he scored twice in the first half of an enthralling match before notching another late on.
The Catalan club will now be favourites to finish the job at the Nou Camp in the return leg in two weeks time. But they still had the shock of their lives as Krakow threw everything at them in the opening half.
The Poles went ahead after 22 minutes when Olgierd Moskalevic found the target with a header from a Grzegorz Pater cross after Arkadiusz Glowacki had seen an effort come back off the post.
Rivaldo levelled from the spot after half an hour, the kick awarded after Patrick Kluivert was bundled over in the box.
That was the start of a crazy spell of three goals in as many minutes as Krakow went 2-1 up on 32 minutes, Pater this time taking on the goal-scoring duties by out-jumping Sergi.
Rivaldo levelled at 2-2 straight from the restart after bursting through to latch on to a perfectly weighted through ball from Xavi and firing past keeper Artur Sarnat.
But Krakow punctured the leaky Barca defence yet again as Tomasz Frankovski was first on to a clearance from keeper Roberto Oscar Bonano to leave the hosts ahead at the interval.
Kluivert promptly levelled after Gabri scampered down the right and found the Dutch international forward lurking on the edge of the box and his first time effort ripped past Sarnat.
Barca then withdrew the ineffective Marc Overmars and sent on Philip Cocu before Kluivert and Rivaldo combined to seal the win on 74 minutes, the Brazilian taking a neat pass to drill home and complete what was for him a majestic evening's work.
AFP