Manchester United and Barcelona: Similar crisis, separate outcome

In a game where Ronald Araùjo and Ferran Torres also scored, Aubameyang started the 4-0 rout after being denied from close by Thibaut Courtois, easily Real Madrid’s best player on Sunday, earlier. The first goal came off a delivery from Ousmane Dembélé and their subsequent embrace told a story of redemption. Aubameyang had to show he could do what Cesc Fabregas, Antoine Griezmann, Philippe Coutinho couldn’t—belong to Barcelona after a Mesut Oezil-like fall-out at Arsenal. Before Barcelona, Aubameyang, 33, had gone to the Africa Cup of Nations but Covid-19 ended his competition before it could begin.

Showing they belong

After an underwhelming four years, Dembélé had been asked by Barcelona to sign a new deal or leave in January. He did neither. So, last month Barcelona coach Xavi Hernández introduced Dembélé to try and force an equaliser at crosstown rivals Espanyol. The Frenchman didn’t do much but it was the beginning of a turnaround that saw Dembélé score a near-post screamer against Athletic Bilbao and provide nine assists in 12 LaLiga games. Only Karim Benzema has more (11 assists) and he has played 25 matches.

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With nine goals in 11 games, including a hat-trick in his first league start, Aubameyang too has forced Xavi to revise his 2020 opinion that the Gabonese needed space and would not be comfortable at Barcelona.

“He is a gift that has fallen on us from heaven,” Xavi has said. According to a report in The Athletic, it took Luis Suarez 560 minutes to score his first goal for Barcelona. In 563 minutes, Aubameyang scored six. No one since Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 2009 has scored five times in his first six games at Barcelona.

Aubameyang and Dembélé’s form was not the only reason why Barcelona beat Real for the first time since 2019 after five successive losses. Back is the ability to keep the ball (do that and space will appear is again a mantra at the club), back is 4-3-3 that would run rings around the world’s best with midfield twins Xavi and Andres Iniesta orchestrating play. Barcelona also pressed high and by the 20th minute, Real Madrid were sitting deep, looking far from the team that was unbeaten in their last eight games, winning six.

Stoking memories

Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba were playing like they had rolled back the years. Left-back Alba popped up in the midfield in a way that reminded of Philipp Lahm at Pep Guardiola’s Bayern. With Frenkie de Jong— the Dutch midfielder worked with Dembélé to create the third goal before a cheeky flick from Aubameyang found Torres in space— and the incredibly talented Pedri moving up, Barcelona often had five attacking players. This Barcelona is also adept at playing long balls— one from Pique’s fetched the fourth goal— and at counter-attacks. True, Real missed Ferland Mendy and Benzema and the plan to use Luka Modric as false nine failed but this was the kind of dominance reminiscent of the 6-2 victory in 2009 or 5-0 in 2010. When Pique put his arm around Vinicius Jr to calm him, it sure felt like the old times.

“We’re back,” Pique said after the match. It was a measure of how much Barcelona have moved since September when after a 0-3 loss to Bayern, Pique had said, “it is what it is.”

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Tale of two cities

Like Barcelona, Manchester United faced a crisis last year. Both changed coaches in November. When Xavi joined, Barcelona were ninth in the league; they are third now with a game in hand over second-placed Sevilla. When Ole Gunnar Solksjaer left, Manchester United were seventh; they are currently sixth. While Barcelona are playing in a certain way and Xavi saying this is the right path—that he looked apoplectic in the 68th minute when they were leading 4-0 shows how difficult he is to please— United still look an “odd bunch”, one that didn’t play as a team, which is what Gary Neville had said of them in September.

Hit by massive debt, Barcelona have given young players a chance; a club report said that including new signings and those who have graduated from Barcelona B, they have 12 under-21 players in the first team, the maximum in the league. Continuing the trend of Riqui Puig (2018) and Ansu Fati (2019), in 2021, Barcelona blooded Gavi and Alejandro Balde from La Masia, which has been rebooted with special emphasis on academics (the need to have a fall back through education is an important draw at football academies), focus on diet and special sleeping arrangements.

“That’s the dream: To once again have 11 players from La Masia on the pitch,” Xavi Martin, who had supervised the overhaul, told ‘World Soccer’ last year. Martin was referring to the game against Levante in 2012 when there were 11 players from La Masia. Between 2018 and now, Mason Greenwood and Anthony Elanga graduated to being first team regulars but that a number of former Manchester United players— Viv Anderson, Wayne Rooney, Andy Cole and technical director Darren Fletcher—enrolled their sons at Manchester City’s academy tells its own story.

Like Barcelona, United have had several missteps over the past few seasons. Giving Juan Mata a new deal last July, signing coaches past their sell-by date (think: Jose Mourinho, Louis van Gaal) or overestimating a caretaker manager’s abilities and giving him £312m pounds to spend are but three. But while it was always known that like some of his predecessors, Xavi would return one day, you can’t say the same at United. Roy Keane, Michael Carrick and Ryan Giggs too know the club from inside but Keane recently turned down a coaching job, Carrick has taken a break from United and Giggs is facing trial in August for assault on his former girlfriend and her sister.

Barcelona are 12 points off Real in the league with a game in hand. Sergio Busquets’ claim to “keep fighting” notwithstanding, the odds on them winning LaLiga are low this year. But, “they are developing an idea and the mechanics are better,” Osasuna manager Jagoba Arrasate was quoted as saying in The Guardian earlier. “They have more punch than the team we faced earlier in the season.” Despite obvious improvements under Ralf Rangnick, you can’t say the same about Manchester United.