The reign in Spain may be Real Madrid’s, but the statement is all Barcelona. In years from now, or perhaps even next season given football’s rapidly fleeting recall, people may struggle to remember that Real Madrid enjoyed one of the easiest title wins in modern football history.
What they won’t stop marvelling about is how their arch-rivals revived themselves. They will rave about the 23 magical minutes old dogs Benzema and Modric took to dismantle an over-hyped PSG in the Champions League just a week before. But it could all be reduced to a whisper when reminded of the hammering of Real Madrid by a strangely resurgent, curiously unaffected Barcelona side.
If you’re still missing out on Barca’s electrifying galvanization – just as impossible it was to tear your eyes from the train wreck that they were less than season back – we suggest you sign up. The experience is still unfolding. I n virtual freefall only a few months ago, under Xavi it seems they had elixir of footballing life on tap all along, but didn’t know where it sat in the cavernous Camp Nou. Carried out by astonishingly talented – still young enough to make schoolboy errors – teens and twenty-somethings of La Masia, Barcelona ‘s return to form, favour and class is as improbable to believe as it is riveting and real.
For example, simply take the case of the multi-faceted, much-experienced David Alaba in Sunday night’s Clasico. Having been part of the Bayern ensemble that headlined the humiliation of Barca in Europe a season or so back, Alaba of erstwhile Bayern fame was discovering rather uncomfortably a completely different taste of Barca as Alaba of current-day Real Madrid fame. How quickly things change, he must have thought, as balls whizzed past him for Barcelona’s out of favour, soon to be journeymen strikers to score.
In reality, though, the Clasico performance – the result, however flattering, still pales before the overall show – underlines how simple effective coaching can rejuvenate the biggest of fallen monsters. You can eventually apply all the Cruyffismo that you want, first instill the workman-like ethos and pride crucial to every sporting idea. Xavi set upon doing just that, the results are beginning to show.
Each time he even warmed up, Ousmane Dembele, that most frustrating of talented signings, would be booed at the Camp Nou because he dithered over contract renewal. Today, each touch of the ball of his draws loving sanction from the stands, as he, far from the unsure, injury-attracting winger that he was, gives them his razor-sharp football that he was brought in for.
When Messi left, amid tears, every one wrote off Barca as being on a never-ending road to recovery. They were certain that it would take light years to fill the void. For years, the team revolved around the great man, squads and season projects were naturally shaped around a rare genius. Today, less than a year later, it has reached a situation that while Messi is a peripheral influence at a very disorganized Paris side, often cutting an increasingly forlorn figure, current-day Barcelona don’t seem to need him in their equation anymore. Far less miss him.
Is this the curse of genius, or just cruel irony, that even they are deemed surplus in time? But Xavi, Messi’s former teammate and long-time telepathic ball-passer, has in no time forged a side and belief that you wouldn’t know where to fit Messi in the first eleven should he ever choose to return after his unfulfilling spell in Paris.
In testimony to Xavi’s effective philosophy of build the midfield first, the goal scorers and goals will follow, who would you cancel out to accommodate the original in his fluid 4-3-3 of Pedri, Ferran Torres, Aubameyang, even a re-born Dest? And how unfair would it be on the one who gets the axe?
Watch, savour this great flowering under Xavi. It’s as pure, as organic and instinctive as youth and sport can ever get. Watch it before age catches up with it.
What they won’t stop marvelling about is how their arch-rivals revived themselves. They will rave about the 23 magical minutes old dogs Benzema and Modric took to dismantle an over-hyped PSG in the Champions League just a week before. But it could all be reduced to a whisper when reminded of the hammering of Real Madrid by a strangely resurgent, curiously unaffected Barcelona side.
If you’re still missing out on Barca’s electrifying galvanization – just as impossible it was to tear your eyes from the train wreck that they were less than season back – we suggest you sign up. The experience is still unfolding. I n virtual freefall only a few months ago, under Xavi it seems they had elixir of footballing life on tap all along, but didn’t know where it sat in the cavernous Camp Nou. Carried out by astonishingly talented – still young enough to make schoolboy errors – teens and twenty-somethings of La Masia, Barcelona ‘s return to form, favour and class is as improbable to believe as it is riveting and real.
For example, simply take the case of the multi-faceted, much-experienced David Alaba in Sunday night’s Clasico. Having been part of the Bayern ensemble that headlined the humiliation of Barca in Europe a season or so back, Alaba of erstwhile Bayern fame was discovering rather uncomfortably a completely different taste of Barca as Alaba of current-day Real Madrid fame. How quickly things change, he must have thought, as balls whizzed past him for Barcelona’s out of favour, soon to be journeymen strikers to score.
In reality, though, the Clasico performance – the result, however flattering, still pales before the overall show – underlines how simple effective coaching can rejuvenate the biggest of fallen monsters. You can eventually apply all the Cruyffismo that you want, first instill the workman-like ethos and pride crucial to every sporting idea. Xavi set upon doing just that, the results are beginning to show.
Each time he even warmed up, Ousmane Dembele, that most frustrating of talented signings, would be booed at the Camp Nou because he dithered over contract renewal. Today, each touch of the ball of his draws loving sanction from the stands, as he, far from the unsure, injury-attracting winger that he was, gives them his razor-sharp football that he was brought in for.
When Messi left, amid tears, every one wrote off Barca as being on a never-ending road to recovery. They were certain that it would take light years to fill the void. For years, the team revolved around the great man, squads and season projects were naturally shaped around a rare genius. Today, less than a year later, it has reached a situation that while Messi is a peripheral influence at a very disorganized Paris side, often cutting an increasingly forlorn figure, current-day Barcelona don’t seem to need him in their equation anymore. Far less miss him.
Is this the curse of genius, or just cruel irony, that even they are deemed surplus in time? But Xavi, Messi’s former teammate and long-time telepathic ball-passer, has in no time forged a side and belief that you wouldn’t know where to fit Messi in the first eleven should he ever choose to return after his unfulfilling spell in Paris.
In testimony to Xavi’s effective philosophy of build the midfield first, the goal scorers and goals will follow, who would you cancel out to accommodate the original in his fluid 4-3-3 of Pedri, Ferran Torres, Aubameyang, even a re-born Dest? And how unfair would it be on the one who gets the axe?
Watch, savour this great flowering under Xavi. It’s as pure, as organic and instinctive as youth and sport can ever get. Watch it before age catches up with it.
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