Barca and it’s Obstacle race

-By Sagar

When Messi hobbled off the pitch clutching his knee, the eyes of the world followed him off it, ignoring the game on the field.

The narratives, the conclusions, the ‘doom & gloom’ predictions had already begun, and now Iniesta has been ruled out for almost a month.

From the first match itself, Barca’s season hasn’t looked like that of a ‘treble winning team’.

The close-shave counter with Sevilla, the beating down by Bilbao in supercopa, and the unconvincing start to the Liga (This, despite the win against Atletico), have all but given people the ammunition to start the war against reason and patience.

But, it’s not all been attributed to the quality of the team or Lucho. The sudden boom of player names in the ‘injury list’ has brought on the cries of ‘unlucky’ on the lips of many. Others have gone off on a tangent by blaming FIFA for upholding the ban, even after the transfer windows have been closed, and are refusing to let us register players (Which is possible when an injury sidelines a player for more than a couple of months).

What we fail to understand is, this is the start of a new season. This team has just won a ‘treble’ for the second time, and has started the season after an intense ‘season long shift’. The team is as it is. No new blood has been added to inject a sense of ‘competition’ or ‘freshness’ (Barca can blame no one but themselves in this. FIFA may or may not be ‘shifty’, but Barca did break the rules).

Teams have to reset their training methods, and once again begin the long process of training to peak at the right time of the season.

What Barca did last season, or even in this decade, is historical and something that makes people expect more from this team. People expecting Barca to continue where they left off at the end of last season are going to be in for a big disappointment. Sadly, it’s more of inevitability and necessity. Players aren’t going to maintain, or carry that level of fitness into the next season, and if some ‘miraculous’ training regime does do that, their mental state and level of concentration will not be sharp enough. Especially after having the world at your feet just a few months back. The psyche of the entire team will still be in a transition mode.

The players have succumbed to some freak injuries on field, and no matter how effective Lucho’s fitness and training methods are; he is helpless when such incidents happen. Rafinha, Vermaelen, Bravo, Alba, Messi, Iniesta, have all been or are injured in the past one month.

With a team that doesn’t have a strong bench, and is plagued by injuries to your best players, resulting in a squad which has thinned down to the extent of having just 15 players in your first team, one has to minimize expectations, and weather the storm.

Goalkeeping and Defense:



Bravo’s injury opened the floodgates this season. Stegen was put in goal for UCL and Liga, and Barca have conceded 18 goals in 11 games, compared to last season’s 3 goals.

The sharpness in defense has dropped. Be it a ‘hot&cold’ Pique after his 4 match ban, Vermaelen’s untimely injury, or Mathieu being deployed at LB, things have gone wrong for Barca at every step in the back-line. Stegen is desperate for a clean-sheet at this point, and although he can be blamed for just a handful of those goals, he can’t seem to escape the criticism. Majority of the goals have come due to a leaky and dull defense which has been a step slower than the opponents. But, the return of Bravo, Pique, getting regular minutes from now, and Alba, going back at LB, will see us shut the gates once more.

Midfield:



This is the real problem in the team now. The bench was never that strong in this area, and the injury to Rafinha all but plugged any ‘depth’ we had in midfield, leaving only the starters, Busquets, Iniesta, and Rakitic as the only players that can be used in midfield. Mascherano-Busquets-Iniesta/Rakitic is a MF line that has been used before, but that results in a midfield that’s too linear, and lacks organization in defense. Busquets plays a little up the field when Masch plays in MF, and although Busquets is a technically gifted player, he struggles going forward.

Sergi Roberto, the guy who is redefining the status of ‘utility player’, is another player who can be used in the midfield, but, after the recent revelation about his effectiveness at right-back, his minutes in midfield will be numbered.

And now, Iniesta is injured. The most ‘creative’ player on the team not named Messi. The midfield is not ‘stretched’ anymore; rather there just isn’t an effective MF line at all. January can’t come sooner for Barca.

Attack:



‘Messidependencia’. He is one of the best players to grace this game, and it’s obvious any team would be dependent on such a player. Be it the role of a ‘creator’ in the final third, or that of the finisher, Messi does it all. Hell, he even drops back to the midfield when they are having an off-day and becomes a constructive midfielder.

So, when Munir walked into the team, though he was not directly compared to Messi, he became the victim of the expectation that the front-line carries. Suarez comes in the same bracket as Messi, when it comes to being marked out of the game for long periods of time, but out of nowhere, can change the game in the final minutes. Sadly Neymar is not at that level yet. His performances are based on ‘individual momentum’. He needs time to get his foot in the plays and build up his game. If that doesn’t happen, he struggles.

This is not criticism, but just an observation, and signifies the importance of Messi.

Losing him for these 2 months will undoubtedly bring the quality down, but, our front-line with Suarez and Neymar (That’s one hell of a duo), along with Munir/Sandro, have the quality and ability to see us through till the Clasico.

Barca is in the midst of turbulence because of circumstances out of their hands. Teams go through this. They also need to plan out the season so they peak at the right time.

Lucho has done the best he can with the cards he’s been dealt with. There are certain points he could have done differently, like the inclusion of Samper and Grimaldo, but the inner politics of the club is a mystery best left alone. Also, who can accurately predict the mind of a coach who somehow manages to dish out a different line-up every week, for months?

All in all, Barca should now go into survival mode, and manage to be within the touching distance of the ‘top spot’ come January. After which, they can go back to being ‘that’ team that devoured Europe last season.



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