Harold Miner.

Now only the most die-hard fan of American basketball will remember that name. He blasted into the National Basketball Association carrying the nickname “Baby Jordan,” after the already-iconic Michael Jordan.

His NBA career lasted 4 years.

A comment in the last thread noted that Ivan Rakitic, for the commenter, has for the past two matches “looked like a Barça midfielder.” Isco is the “heir apparent” to Andres Iniesta, and we know this because there are many articles that tell us he is. Marc Bartra is like unto Puyol, and Thiago Alcantara would have been the next Xavi, had that mean ol’ board not sold him for a few shiny trinkets and a friendly or something.

Standards are a fascinating thing. The Xavi comparisons for Rakitic were cringe-worthy for so many reasons, mostly having to do with athlete iconography. Returning to the hoops analogy, the reason there is, can not and will never be another Michael Jordan (sorry, Mr. James, or do you prefer King?) is because the truly amazing athlete doesn’t come along that often. When one does, it is a stupefying amalgam of talent, drive, durability and luck. Those players are coachable, usually mean in an unrelenting way and would run over their own mothers to get to that next level.

Sebastian Vettel might win as many F1 drivers championships as Michael Schumacher, but will never be the “next Schumacher.” Football has and will bring us many “next Messi,” but does anyone honestly think such a thing will happen in any of our lifetimes? Watch the player, and answer that question. Does the fact that there is a “next Messi” more often than there is a “next Ronaldo” mean anything?

So what of the notion that an athlete becomes more valid if he is defined by an existing template or parameter? Messi and Ronaldo are two very different players. You can’t compare them, making efforts to define which is “best” doomed to adolescent bench racing. Iniesta simply is. Why the need to replace him? When the one that we have goes, let him go. Next Xavi, next Puyol, next whatever. Hell, there’s already a next Neymar even though the current Neymar is still developing into something. The Barça teams of the recent past weren’t great because of any sort of magic. They were great because they had a group of iconic players working at something close to their prime.

We snarl at the board for letting opportunities go, for not building the team in a way commensurate with the designs on excellence that we all think the Barça legacy deserves. But how, exactly, is that supposed to happen? What goes on when Puyol leaves? How do you replace a Xavi? He isn’t some aging athlete, clinging to faded glory like a life raft. He’s still one of the best midfielders in the game on his day. If he were that easy to replace, he would have been.

It’s taken Barça how many years to find an attacking trio something like the equal of Messi/Eto’o/Henry? Great teams are irreplacable. If greatness was that easy, it would happen more often. So it is with players and notions of conforming to some sort of template.

Standards are an odd thing. The Rakitic looking like a Barça midfielder statement intrigues because of the curiosity sparked by that idea. Is it an idea or a person? Does that mean Xavi? Does that mean a mixture of passing and vision? What does a Barça midfielder look like? Deco? Guardiola? Keita? Iniesta? Xavi? What are the attributes of this being? Balance, vision, passing skill, that remarkable gift to almost be able to see into the future, know what to do with the ball and exactly how to do it.

Is that a Barça midfielder of necessity, or just an excellent midfielder. After all, that description could encompass Modric, Isco, Alonso, Kroos, Scholes, Pirlo.

The shorthand that athletics uses to define can also limit. Isco isn’t the next Iniesta. Does the nomenclature make an implication by association? Yep. Like it or not, it does. And that association makes it difficult for a player to meet that standard. Even Iniesta can’t meet his own standard. How is another player supposed to?

Our game isn’t just played with speed. It’s also evaluated with speed. The age of social media and the race to be the first with an online opinion makes that speed like something even space ships can barely keep pace with. Crises come and go, player careers spark into life and then ebb in mere weeks. Just as quickly as media outlets and supporters build them up, these things are torn down. RM is the best team ever, like Guardiola’s sides. Now they’re in crisis. Now they’re back. Whoops! Hang on.

Barça is a mess. Wait, the team is … nope. Crisis! Hang on … 11 in a row. Crisis over. Nope. Lost to Malaga. Crisis is back.

That same race extends to players. As a music journalist in my day job, I always caution my writers not to use another band to describe the sound of a band. “This latest song is like Modest Mouse meets Deadmaus.” Well, what the hell does that mean? Even if you use a band that you know to be part of the average person’s lexicon, “This track reminds me of if the Beatles had written a song for Michael Jackson,” what does that mean, exactly?

So even as we understand a phrase such as Raktic is looking like a Barça midfielder, what does it mean? Can Rakitic look like a talented midfielder who is starting to develop a rapport with his teammates as his role becomes more clearly defined? That’s a mouthful, but sure. Is he a prototypical attacking midfielder? You betcha? A bargain at 18m because of the skill set that he brings to the position? Absolutely.

Let him be. Sergi Samper probably doesn’t want to look at newspapers these days. Xavi, Guardiola, blabla, etc, etc. Lord today. We have all watched him play, and see an unusually talented midfielder with grace and balance, an eye for the right pass and when to make it. He reads the game beautifully, and is still developing. So there he is. Eric Bailly had a standout match for Villarreal in defense today, and his name is already coming up in statements such as, “I would take him over Musacchio, or (insert defender name here)”

What this world we all frolic in needs, it seems, is calm. Things are what they are. After we have had a wonderful boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, pet, etc, do all subsequent ones become defined by that one? Can you imagine a guy saying to a woman he’s dating, “I’m pretty sure you’re the next Babette, but I will need more time to figure that out.” Bonkers, right?

Just asking.

“Why aren’t people happy with your team?”

It’s an interesting query that I had to deal with the other day on Champions League day, which is pretty the only time that a Prem-centric universe pays attention to those little guys from Spain. It was a struggle to come to grips with the answer, but finally came the distillation: the team is winning, but it isn’t winning in the right way.

What makes the above summary even more interesting is comparing the away match at Granada this year to last. Barça lost away to Granada last season, as it pranged the ball around in a half-assed tribute to a Way that used to be, patient midfield play in the form of a stylistic white flag from its then-coach, Gerardo Martino.

This year, Barça won off of the strength of three goals rooted in a dynamic brand of football. Yes, the passes came from a midfielder, but rather than the possession-based probing, the waiting for an opening and keeping the ball until one came, the pass reacted to the run of a dynamic forward, and struck.

WhoScored.com had Messi as MOTM, a selection that was as hilarious as it was myopic. Rakitic was MOTM in a walk for this watcher as he played a superb, dominant, all-pitch match. He was involved in all three goals as well as defense and possession, he was brilliant along with Suarez, even as the team wasn’t. Even more interesting is his midfielder display at a time when again, some observers of the team are suggesting that Enrique isn’t doing things in the right way.

Sergio Busquets had something very insightful to say on the matter, in a recent Guardian interview with Sid Lowe:

“ … at first under Guardiola, teams didn’t give us so much respect; they played openly. Now 95% of them wait, shut down, and counter-attack. It’s more difficult to play one-touch [so the new style] is partly a reaction to other teams. It’s a mix now. Team-mates are not as close to me, which has advantages and disadvantages. There’s more space and a lot more counter-attacks. We have players that can change the game. Messi, Neymar, Suárez … ”

Do you perform the same task in the same way irrespective of the personnel in place? Farmers don’t hitch carts to thoroughbreds. They have plowhorses for that. Change, and adaptability to change in a footballing world that reveres the past is something worth considering. The game respects the views of past greats on a game that they only see in the stands or on television. And people listen, rather than saying “But things are different now.” This is in part because there’s really no way to catch them out, but also because people want the past.

Just as old people want to be young again, culers cherish the days of the Capering Sprites and the lovely midfield triangles, elegant dissections of mostly willing opponents. It was only when those opponents decided to rise up against the oppression that complexities arose, and coaches took a shot at attempting to solve them. Tito Vilanova opened up the attack to make the game more vertical, a revolution that was interrupted by his illness.

Tata Martino came in and cranked the volume on verticalidad, a move that got him little more than scorn that reached its hilarious, absurd culmination in a 4-0 pasting of Rayo that was “bad” because the team lost the possession stats. And Martino, chastened, backed off the revolution that saw Barça roar into the break a record-setting side, and went back to plunking the ball around midfield against opponents who probably couldn’t believe their luck.

Luis Enrique came in, and didn’t give a damn what anyone said. He had a notion, wanted to not only build a Barça that was adaptable, but also build a Barça suited to the strengths of its attackers. He ignored the dogmatic ruckus raised by those who cherish the midfield elegance of bygone days because like Busquets, Enrique understands that the game has changed, that opponents are no longer willing to stand around and marvel at Xavi and Iniesta as they make curlicues. And even if they were, Xavi and Iniesta can’t make those curlicues any longer. They can no longer meet their own sepia-toned standard as time does what it does. But even beyond that, opponents force an adaptation that a team would be foolish not to undertake. It isn’t wrong to bang a ball to Neymar and let him do his thing. It’s just a different way of responding to a stimulus.

There were a few Xavi comparisons made to the Rakitic performance today on social media, comparisons that I desperately wish hadn’t been made, because Xavi isn’t the point. Xavi is a brilliant player and a true Barça legend. But he isn’t and shouldn’t be a reference because he is, like he and Capering Sprites, a wonderful one-off that culers should blow the dust off of and unveil to remind people of a more beautiful, stylistic time.

Change is always necessary in response to a stimulus, and resistance to it is illogical. Many scoffed at Enrique for adapting to opponents, suggesting that “Barça has its style, and people should adapt to us.” Opponent after opponent did, and that was the problem. Adding to that is that at this point in time, Barça has the best, most dynamic attack in world football. To misuse that attack in service of a Way would be absurd and frankly, silly.

Look at today’s first goal. Alba banged a lovely, long pass for Suarez to run onto. Suarez just banged the ball into the box, something that I wish our attackers would do more often, a speculative spear of a lash at the ball that essentially said, “Something cool could happen here.” In the ensuing consternation, a defender made the wrong play on the ball and Rakitic slammed it home. A long pass and a cross.

The second goal was even “worse,” as Raktic again worked a give-and-go with Suarez that culminated in a lobbed ball over the top for Suarez to run onto. Then he finished, as the Footy Gods wept.

Speed, pace, versatility and dynamism are never, ever bad things, even at the expense of misguided notions of identity. What did people think of the long runs and dynamic passes over distance of Ronaldinho, or the long passes out into space for Thierry Henry and Samuel Eto’o to run onto? What did they make of Guardiola’s defenders, banging long, attack-starting passes out of the back? It’s worth wondering again. The short, triangle-based passing game was every bit as much a reaction to a stimulus as the way that Barça plays now is. An old person’s life isn’t “wrong” because they aren’t 25 again.

Granada, at home, came out ready to fight. Ray Hudson described it as an alley fight, which was very apt. They pushed, poked, charged, fouled and tried to make life as difficult as possible for a team that was coming off a high-energy midweek display against a top-quality European opponent. It was a team that Granada suspected wouldn’t be at its best, and it wasn’t.

As intricate and lovely as the system of the recent past was, complexities arose when the team wasn’t functioning at its best, as the interrelated parts didn’t mesh. At Granada today, really only Rakitic and Suarez were standouts. Xavi was invisible and most ineffective because this wasn’t his kind of match. That was the opponent’s fault, rather than anything having to do with anything that Enrique did. Messi was off. Neymar was dynamic, but not as effective as he has been in the past. And still, Barça won.

That Barça won today in that very different way was no more “wrong” than when the team Barça defeated Atleti by, in essence, playing without a midfield. These situations are just part of the game, which is different from day to day, match to match, minute to minute. Adapt or die. It has been noted before that Barça is less secure and more dangerous this season. There is something about having the ball all the time that reassures. Even if they won’t let us score, at least they won’t score.

But it’s really a question of method vs results. The bottom line for many is that a successful team is objectively doing things the right way. It is only in the subjective realm that things such as not playing the right way enters the picture. The challenge is in defining that right way, applying a model or template to the way that a set of athletes goes about its business. That’s a challenge, because a team and its coaches are always going to adapt. The triangles came about because of a personnel change. Messi as false 9 came about because of personnel change. If a team could keep on winning by playing the exact same way all time, why wouldn’t it?

At what point is the system flawed because of what it is, rather than the people tasked with executing it. And what is the sin in changing that system to adapt and potentially triumph over a new set of demands.

That, of course, depends on who you ask. Granada for example, isn’t all all pleased with the Barça adaptation.

None of it matters.

Messi was absent from the UEFA Team of the Week, but Ronaldo was in there. So what.

Some don’t think that Messi is better than Ronaldo. So what.

The Premiership is called by many “best league in the world.” So what.

At the end of a remarkable week of football, in which Premiership teams dropped like flies in a firestorm, comes the blizzard of analysis pieces. “If it’s the best league in the world, what happened?”

The answers are simple and obvious, really. The running and industry that makes for excellent television as people sit down, ooh and aah as they watch a giant, high-def screen and tackles go flying in. The reason that Prem sides used to be better in Europe is that they had managers who understood that you have to play different ways when you go to Europe, rather than suffuse your side with the institutional arrogance attendant to being “best in the world.” Chelsea will go farther in Europe because its manager understands that a team has to play different ways in the league, as well as in Europe. It also has to play differently in the first leg at home, vs the second leg away, or vice versa.

Only a fool would give Barça the space that City allowed in that first half, and Pellegrini isn’t a fool. Is he a manager who believes in his side, to the extent of fully believing that they are equals to one of the best football clubs in the world? Yup. But that’s naïve, rather than foolish. Arsenal didn’t think that Monaco had a chance against them, and played like it. But just because Monaco is in Ligue 1 doesn’t mean they are terrible. It just means that they are in a league with a different set of requirements and standards of excellence.

Arsenal might still turn that tie, just as City might. The broader question, as people snuffle and snort about the Prem’s status, hot on the heels of a giant TV contract, is what does it matter? The Premiership exists in a vacuum. It isn’t the “best league in the world” because of any status bestowed by anyone. It’s the “best league in the world” because people became convinced that such a thing is true. You say it enough times and it becomes so. But if people already know that the Prem isn’t the best league in the world, why the surprise when its clubs get bounced from Europe? Do Prem neutrals find the “best league in the world” stuff just as seductive as Prem devotees?

If this wasn’t the case, the hand-wringing would be largely absent, replaced by a much simpler, “Duh.” Yes, we all like to pick on the rich kid, but the Prem got that status by understanding how to put on a show, marketing that league and not being run by jackasses. The language is also English. Yes, we know that given the dominance of foreigners in the Prem, language is a distinction lost to logic, but people don’t think that closely about the game. “It’s English. I speak English.” And the influential U.S. market becomes a monolingual slam dunk.

The Prem doesn’t have to be the best, people just have to think that it is, and the myopia will build. In many ways it’s like Formula One, a sport whose press is predominantly English, and whose roots are felt by many to be, even as the sport is one of the most truly international at every level.

A story came out Friday about the organizers of the British Grand Prix, which is customarily held at Silverstone, wondering what kind of championship F1 would be without Silverstone. There again, it’s a peculiar kind of myopia that comes from a status bestowed by tenure. F1 did just fine without Spa (Belgium). Why would it somehow be devalued because of the absence of Silverstone? It wouldn’t, any more than the Prem will be devalued because its teams are absent from the European stage.

The Prem is, in the U.S., on a major network in NBC. That means that any, all and everyone can see it. You don’t need cable, or a special sports tier as you do with La Liga. You can just turn on the TV, and there it is, available to people who might not even care about football. “Hey, looka those little guys go!” The matches are broadcast in crystalline HD, and miked in a way that makes “You’ll Never Walk Alone” positively spine-tingling. Meanwhile in La Liga you get vague echoes of what might be the sound of fans in a stadium.

A colleague who doesn’t give two craps about football suddenly stated talking to me about the Prem last season, when matches started being broadcast on NBC. You want marketing? That is marketing. People can snuffle all they like about the technical prowess of Spain, or the packed stadiums and screaming supporters of the Bayernsliga. Nobody cares because they can’t SEE it. It’s the same reason nobody cares about Europe and its effect on the Premiership. Liverpool won’t stop being a storied club because it got bounced out of the Europa League. Arsenal won’t stop being Arsenal because it lost to a Monaco side who will next have to have tryouts among its supporters to find a pair of CBs to rub together.

It doesn’t matter, because reality is what people believe.

The penalty of Messi

In the week’s Champions League football, Ronaldo scored a goal and Messi missed a penalty. Is making the Team of the Week as simple as that? Yep. Supporters crow about the goals that Messi scores. When someone hears that Messi dominated a match, the first question is “How many goals did he score?” “None.” “Then how did he dominate?” Goals are the currency that define greatness. It is in many ways hypocritical to crow about Messi becoming the all-time leading scorer, breaking this or that scoring record then snarl because the Ballon d’Or has been reduced to a goal scoring competition. He isn’t just goals, but the timing of the goals, the creation of the goals, all the stuff that he does in between the goals. Goals captivate, goals are the thing. So it makes sense that the most enduring image from the City match was Messi laying on his face, trying to burrow into the Etihad pitch. Why? He missed a penalty.

The two questions lingering are did that missed PK devalue the rest of his match to a degree sufficient to have him NOT make Team of the Week, and should we care? No, and no.

On an Internet where people can’t even suss whether a dress is black and blue or white and gold, how in hell are they going to parse whether a player is in fact GOAT. Many of them can barely find a picture of a goat. But the Internet has made affirmation more important than ever. It isn’t that we believe, it’s that we want others to believe. We argue, post statistics, scoff and snark. But at the end of it all, we are trying to convince someone that what we believe is “correct.” The Premiership has convinced people that it is the best league in the world, to the tune of a 5bn+ television package. That’s some convincing.

But as long as his supporters believe that Messi is the best, none of the rest of it matters. He missed a penalty that would have put the tie out of reach for City. Does that change anything? Depends on who you ask. If you believe that it does, it does. If you believe that it doesn’t then it doesn’t. The rest is a waste of bandwidth.

What’s interesting is the stat that of the 10 penalties Messi has taken after the 85th minute, he has missed half of them. Is a 50% conversion rate for penalties in the part of a match that makes converted ones potentially the most devastating an acceptable conversion rate for a player of Messi’s caliber? Here’s another question: what if Enrique suggested that Suarez start taking penalties?

When I raised that question on Twitter, the variety of responses was interesting. Some said “He’s the best, why would anyone else take them?” “It would be an insult.” But would it be? If Messi, as rumor has it, doesn’t like taking them, what’s the harm? Would it goad Messi into improving that aspect of his game? Would it pad Suarez’s goal totals now that Barca is getting penalties thanks to its altered playing style?

But there is danger afoot, Dr. Watson! A crisis even, if certain media critters are to tickle our credibility bones. “Penalties are as much mine as my PlayStation, dammit. Rip them from my sleeve-covered digits at your own peril, Asturian Man.”

The other complexity of course is how in the brimstone-scented hell can the Best Player Alive ™, the dude who bangs in massive goals at key times for his club like he’s booting a stray ball off the practice pitch, not also be an infallible demon from the spot? His lessers, the likes of Ronaldo and Ibrahimovic, who blasts rockets into various spots of the goal like he’s playing foot darts, step to the spot and you just look away, anticipating the partisan roar as a keeper dives for nothing. What the hell, Messi?

Is it as simple as a previously mentioned lack of perfection? That if he did all that AND banged the hell out of penalties, it just wouldn’t be fair. And what if he just needs something to work on? Michael Jordan wasn’t always automatic from the free throw line. Work, work and more work bred the player who, late in a basketball game, strolled to the free throw line, looked at an opponent who had been trash talking and said “This one’s for you, baby.” Jordan then closed his eyes and … swish. All net.

Are penalties a question of work, of honing that instinct just like a free throw? No, the free throw doesn’t have a multi-limbed colossus striving to outguess you, to leap to his feet in the aftermath and scream, “Yo gimme just got got, G! Hooooraw!” How is it that a player who successfully manages the audacious with a frequency that renders his merely exceptional goals mundane, pop a shot anywhere a keeper can get to it. Top corner? Sure. Corkscrew ball that curls off through the parking lot, comes in the back entrance and plops into the net? Okay. Off the post and in? Snore, but why not?

And yet, he misses. He’s missed them in friendlies, missed them with a Liga match on the line, missed them against Chelsea in Champions League. Why? Who knows. A penalty kick has never been automatic, never a guaranteed goal. But the percentage with which they are converted by mortal players hovers somewhere in the stratosphere. What’s the deal with the man who might truly go down in history as the best who ever played, for those who crave such a limiting definition.

And how wrong is someone who suggests that maybe, just maybe, a lesser being might be better equipped to grab a gimme.

The ending was perfect.

In many ways seeing Messi laying there on the Etihad pitch raging at his penalty miss, prone in the aftermath of a putback attempt, was a perfect ending to this wonderful match. Because art shouldn’t be perfect. Art, like life, should contain flaws, and Barça is life. Messy, violent, sublime life that treats us to highs and lows, spits in our faces at inopportune times and presents us with joy sufficient to almost make our hearts burst.

And like art, its artisans paint with brightly colored boots for brushes, making the most delicate hatching marks across a green canvas as they seek to create simultaneous beauty as they sow destruction.

In the wake of a loss to Malaga, a casino visit and speculation about the state of a relationship between a coach and his star player, Barça set up to face Manchester City, a team that culers suspected might not be good enough but like that thing you know you want and will probably get, but don’t want to count on it because you might jinx it, few culers really wanted to confess to being flush with confidence at the outset of this repeat matchup of last season’s Champions League.

Some of the uncertainty was because of the Malaga tie, a loss in which the team’s coach discussed his tactics after the match as if they were some sort of formula rather than one of those footballing bolts out of the blue. “But Malaga isn’t even a Champions League side,” some said as those slivers of doubt crept in.

And then, for 45 magnificent minutes, Barça delivered a display of footballing divinity that had neutrals shaking their heads in wonderment. It was a delightful team performance that was helped by some naivete on the part of City and its coach, just as Malaga was helped on the weekend by a lot of flatness from Barça. These things happen. Busquets could sip tea as he decided what perfect pass to play. Alba was everywhere. Suarez scored a pair of goals, classic striker’s goals, and should have had a third. Rakitic was every bit the player he was at Sevilla, unleashed in a system that played to his strengths and an opponent who allowed such a thing to transpire.

Pique was magnificent, Ter Stegen coolly professional, But even in the face of all that beauty, only a fool wouldn’t admit that this was Messi’s match. His fingerprints were over both goals, and he had defensive stats that would put a defender to shame. He pranced and capered, nutmegged and passed, controlled and dominated. It was a night where he seemed unfettered by mortal constraints as City players tried everything to contain him only to find Messi, somehow, almost magically, on the other side of a tackle attempt as even efforts to foul him failed.

The first goal came from a lobbed pass into the box that found Kompany unprepared, perhaps thinking that the attempt would be absurd. The ball bounced around and fell onto a patch of open pitch, seeming to stop there as if to ask the question, “Who wants this?” Suarez stopped, pounced and it was 0-1. Lucky bounce, sure. Excellent movement, absolutely. But the perfection of that pass smacked of divinity. You don’t have to be a fan of Messi to be able to appreciate how extraordinary the things are that he does, things that make his ordinary days make liars out of those who defend him no matter what.

For the second goal, Rakitic took a pass and was instantly confronted by a couple of City defenders. With discretion being the better part of valor he passed the ball to Messi, who doesn’t seem to have notions of what can or can’t be done. Five defenders confronted him as he moved through them almost like a video game, as some kid with a joystick said “Cool! The cheat code!” Then he slid a pass to Alba, who assisted Suarez.

Say that Messi didn’t have a good match because he was bottled up by defenders, then put the Vine of today’s moment on repeat and tell me again how a defense can stop Messi when he doesn’t want to be stopped. His nutmeg of David Silva was pure evil, this display coming in the wake of a written piece by Paul Scholes in which he describes how impossible it is to play against Lionel Messi, who essentially brought that piece to life.

After the match people rushed to the defense and praise of Messi as they always do almost no matter how he plays, like the obligatory standing ovation that greets a symphony orchestra by a crowd that doesn’t really know how to parse what they saw so it’s easier to leap to their feet and scream “Bravo!”

But Messi doesn’t need defending. Messi doesn’t need praise. Especially not after this match. If you can watch that player have that match, then sit and suggest that he isn’t extraordinary, it doesn’t matter how much anyone says, what kind of case is made for him. You either see it, or you don’t. And if you don’t see it, how can anyone really explain it to you?

Yet even after all that, the mistake would be to reduce this match to Messi, for other Barça players were also immense, even if not otherworldly. Suarez, seemingly revved up by the English air, was everywhere, from scoring to donkey work, tracking back and winning balls. Pique made a case for his return to the defensive elite, making those times when he was being dismissed as a poker-playing playboy with a pop star wife seem such a distant memory.

And Enrique got his tactics right as much as Pellegrini got his wrong as his attackers came running at Barça as if they believed that “defensive frailty” business. That Barça will make an error or two is a given, and a sharp opponent will need to capitalize on every one of them. But those brain lapses are different from the kind of frailty that too many supporters and pundits seem to take for granted. But City didn’t just leave space. Barça took it with a display of pretty passing and movement that called to mind another era, the kind of football that Enrique detractors snarled about this team not being able to play, forgetting that Enrique has struggled and rotated and coached to build a team that can play in many different ways to beat an opponent.

Yes, history will ask whether Barça was guilty of hubris as they came out for the second half a diminished side that seemed almost surprised that City would evince the quality and effort that makes them a Premiership contender. They slowly worked their way back into the match, eventually pulling a goal back thanks to a comedy of errors as it seemed that every Barça defender had a chance to clear a ball that eventually fell to Aguero, who made no mistake as he slotted home. People gasped and suddenly paranoid culers began to mutter that perhaps, just perhaps, a 2-2 seemed more likely than a 1-3 as doubt reminded us of his residency, like that obnoxious relative who just won’t leave your guest room.

But to fret and worry and suddenly bay at the heavens would be to ignore the reality that City wasn’t in this match. The first could have ended 0-4 or 5, and only Joe Hart kept his team in the match with three excellent moments: two against Messi and one against Suarez. And yes, this tie could have, and probably should have been over, but the reality is that whether 0-2 or 1-2, away goals mean that City will still have to score twice at the Camp Nou while not conceding. I’m no oddsmaker but the possibility of that, given the necessity of the all-out kind of attack such a feat will require, strains credulity.

It’s easy to understand the doubt that creeps in. This team just lost to Malaga. Yes, it’s the same team that won 11 straight, beat Atleti three times and was on a roll, but disaster is just around the corner. We lost to Malaga! The beauty of football is that each and every match is a new beginning. A relegation candidate has a chance to beat the immense, talent-packed, monied colossus, just as an extraordinary footballing side has the potential to be, for a match or two, a week or two, a magical run of matches or few, better than its supporters expect it to be, better than the culer-described mess that it demands to be.

We are graced with one of the best football teams in the world. You need look no farther than the disappointment in a 1-2 result that wasn’t as close as the score indicated to understand that. Malaga returned home, hailed as conquering heroes. That win made their season. The win for Barça today somehow wasn’t enough. They got a goal, we should have scored more.

And yet for me, the result was almost beside the point. For a half, Barça achieved footballing divinity, making the game look easy against an opponent — a powerful, monied opponent boasting gobs of talent — who was doing everything in its power to make that game as difficult as possible. We seek beauty and elegance, seek those moments that lift us up and promise something extraordinary. It is often said that culers would rather lose with beauty than win ugly. Yet winning with moments of breathtaking beauty somehow leaves a supporter base wanting more, demanding more, somehow feeling cheated.

Ask me how I know Barça is better than even its supporters are willing to admit, and I will point to that feeling. It should have been more. That it wasn’t more isn’t the point. It’s the expectation that defines the feeling, and the beauty that makes it all so wonderful.

There is a children’s game that is loads of fun, if you haven’t played it. You get a donkey poster or stuffed figurine. Then you blindfold a kid, give him the donkey’s tail, which is usually a piece of cloth or something, with a pin through it. Then you spin the kid around a few times, then turn him loose to pin the tail on the donkey.

That game is a lot like what the culer fan base resembles after a loss, as everyone seeks reasons for what happened, almost as if the most obvious ones are too obvious to consider.

It can’t be as easy as Malaga played really well and Barça played poorly, because the necessity for the mental palliatives that serve as supporter placebos is a constant. But let’s get right down to it.
Continue Reading

Sometimes in a comments thread you see something that deserves to be a post. So it is with a comment from kosby:

Several amazing questions – I won’t be pretending to have answers to all of them. For me, there are two kinds of passes
1. straight to the feet/head of the receiver
2. through pass

“Xavi plays to the future” – one of my favorite quotes in football. When most mortals talk about passing, they talk about the next possible pass. Geniuses like Xavi/Busquets think about the pass that would lead to the next pass that would create a goal scoring chance. Its all about how you manipulate space. If you pass to someone such that they attract a defender to them, the defender just vacated an area of space that could be exploited by someone on your team. I cant explain this better since I myself am in awe of how its done.
Continue Reading

“Wheeeeee!”

This was such a beautiful match today.

The things that made it beautiful are the same things that make long-time spouses or lovers beautiful to us: everyday beauty, day in and day out, when they aren’t at their best — flaws, unshaven, hair messy — true beauty that comes across in the simplest of ways.

You don’t worry at all that the beauty will abate. You worry more about your ability to appreciate it as time passes and excitement becomes expectation becomes expectoration. “Pah! Nothing to see here!”

The arc of this season’s Barça has been an odd one, from excitement and anticipation to disillusionment and disgruntlement, to mutiny and muttering and now to an odd sort of discomfort rooted in the very simple fact of a basic reality: ain’t no room for wrong. The team still has critics, still has people who aren’t happy with the way that it’s playing, even as it is increasingly difficult for them to articulate the precise root of that unhappiness.

Others begrudgingly admit that something cool might be going on, but will reserve judgment until the end of the season to see what trophies are won, a fascinating complexity that flies in the face of the “Results aren’t the only metric, but how the team plays.” Got it.

How the team played today made a believer out of me. Not a full-on, get me a seat at the victory parade believer, but one who is beginning to think that the silverless prediction uttered at the start of the season was hasty. A lot has happened that was difficult for even the most optimistic culer to expect:

— Neymar has exploded into vibrant life.
— Suarez is coming good more quickly than anticipated
— Messi on the right works.
— Mascherano has become even more of a boss.
— Pique isn’t washed up. Far, far from it.
— Alba has found a new level.
— There is a manageable press that isn’t the hyper-fast press of Treble Barça, but an effective one.
— Malleability has made this team more, rather than less formidable.

This brings us to Levante, a team that placed a very different set of demands on this Barça, one of expectation. Levante was supposed to get the crap kicked out of it today, the only question would be how. And that sort of pressure manifests itself on the kicker and the kickee. Levante decided to deal with it by applying a hybrid of semi-intelligent defense and attacking when possible, a “Damn the torpedoes” approach that displayed an understanding of its role at the Camp Nou today.

Barça had the challenge … no, pressure of having to stomp an opponent, but in a way that didn’t require full energy as there is a date with Villarreal for a spot in the Copa final looming. But there is also the entorno, silent and waiting for any sliver of daylight to leap at a Barça that still isn’t fully trusted, and probably won’t be this season.

The team didn’t have to go all out to beat Levante, and knew it. Lapses of concentration were apparent in runs not made, players standing offside, passes not quite linking up in the box. Messi was giving away balls early like he was Santa Claus. But superior quality is a luxury that allows the better team to indulge its quest for the perfect goal. Because even as Levante started brightly, the outcome of this match was never, ever in doubt. So when Messi laced a pass for Neymar that he one-timed for a stupefying goal, it was more than meeting expectation. It was almost as if two stellar players said “Okay, time to do this,” and turned up the wick just a little brighter.

Neymar’s happy accident was intended to be a pass to a wide-open Pedro, sitting on the doorstep. And this makes perfect sense because nobody has the audacity to hit a swinging drop volley of a shot that delicately landed just over the goal line, more rebuke than pillaging of the kind that occurred on the second goal, when Levante tried to play football. The press worked the ball loose and Bartra did his best Busquets impersonation, lacing a flawless pass to Messi who is suddenly a right-footed finisher.

That second goal effectively ended the match, turning this affair into something more academic, real-time pondering of questions worth asking.

Does Barça have a system?

Some say no, that it’s still “Let the geniuses do their thing.” But a more pertinent question is does any team have a system, or is it a set of athletes who react to a stimulus in the form of an opponent. Barça has returned to a past that it never really left in a pressing back line and midfield, controlling players with excellent technical skills who can pass their way out of a hurricane and a genius player or two up front. Think of the last time that this hasn’t been true.

That the team was proficient enough in that system to calmly and with muted energy dispatch Levante, even though expected, was wonderful to see. That it could do so with its best player scoring a hat trick but not having all that good a match was also pretty wonderful.

What of Messidependencia?

Messi wants to play all the time is a very different statement than Messi has to play all the time. Recent editions of Barça have gone as Messi goes. If he’s brilliant, so is the team. If he’s on that sort of walkabout that he employs to save energy, the team usually struggles. Messidependencia was a psychological as it was physical. But even as Messi wasn’t good today, the team was. Messi scored a hat trick, two gimmes and a penalty, but Neymar was far and away the best attacker today, dripping stardust from almost every touch of the ball, slashing, attacking, distributing and doing that “disrespect” thing he does.

And Barça rolled. Only a fool would say that Barça shouldn’t revel in the presence of the best player in the game, and one of the best players of all time. But a bigger fool wouldn’t be thrilled at the fact that in the here and now, Barça doesn’t need its genius to light up the field for the team to shine.

What if the trident is fragmented?

Messi wasn’t sterling, and Suarez started the match on the bench. Suarez later came in for Neymar, and scored one hell of a golazo before turning down the wick a bit and helping the team cruise home. It’s easy to say that Barça’s system is give it to Messi/Neymar/Suarez and let them have at it. Harder still is to replace Suarez with Pedro and still have the attack work.

“Yeah, but Messi scored a hat trick, so your theory is stupid.” Okay. But Pedro or Munir could have finished any of those goals that Messi did, which is the beauty of the thing. There are goals that only Messi can score. None of the three that he tallied today were those sorts of goals. Rather they were team goals that found Messi at the terminus of the move.

That is exciting.

In a moment of mirth, it’s easy to notice an inverse correlation between what’s going on with the board and the team’s play. As things slide downhill in the carpeted, paneled boardroom as Bartomeu said “Rosell did it, and what’s more, I signed those things, but didn’t read them,” the team is being increasingly wonderful. Here’s hoping that trend continues.

The team has won 11 matches in a row since the failure at Anoeta. It won today with the motor on idle and a rotation lineup. It has won with an old-school beat, it was won with a modern, non-linear flair that verges on digital. It just keeps winning. The gloom in all the rays of sunlight streaming down is that this club is only a single negative result away from the return of all the crisis talk and the doubt. And that, for me, just ain’t right.

“It’s not a blanket. It’s a scarf.”

Barça is metal.

Past iterations of the team, like all the rest, have sung their various songs, from the classical of Cruijff’s Dream Team to the syncopated jazz of Pep Guardiola’s squads. But this team is metal — violent, impatient, in-your-face, romping, stomping and not at all interested in what an opponent does except in dissecting it as a means to destroy.

Like metal, this Barça isn’t to everyone’s taste. Sonic revolutions rarely are even as their presence sets a tone. At the inception of rock ‘n’ roll people snarled about the harsh sounds, craved the soothing, familiar tones of the past. Many stopped buying albums, carped about how “This isn’t music,” but people bought in and the music flourished, guttural sounds less possessed of sonority than an insistent tone, impatience in sound. Eleven times this season, Barça has scored within ten minutes of conceding.

That’s metal, and that’s Barça.

The team that rolled into the Copa semi-final against Villarreal in midweek was on a roll, throwing down power chords, making devil horns and laughing in the faces of those who insisted things were done, that a non-crisis crisis with roots in an accursed away ground was something more than what it was: un jour sans; as the French so elegantly put it.

Easy answers beckon, team meetings and captains this and coaches that, nothing and everything that came down to a team essentially flipping a switch, a team that was there all along and had been showing gradual signs of coming out, signs ignored in the necessity that a rush to judgment forces. This can’t be happening, because it’s necessary for that to be happening. And where once there was a note or two, a riff is now a nasty, distorted, symphonic blizzard of joy, a tune that is a surprise to everyone except those who were paying attention as the drummer kicked in … then the bassist and suddenly a rhythm section formed as the rest of the band coalesced around it.

Teams don’t know what to expect from this band. It’s like a bebop ensemble that decided metal would be more fun. Opponents talk of no longer being afraid of Barça. Some find that their interview room courage becomes on-pitch trepidation and they cower on the rocks of their box like seals in the face of a predator.

Others, such as Villarreal, whistle a happy tune so that nobody will know they’re afraid, and attack because they, like so many others, are still expecting a jazz band. “What is that noise? That doesn’t sound like Barça.” And a mean-faced Iniesta combines with Mascherano of the shaved pate to force a ball loose. The influence pressing of the past is now direct and physical, not as a matter of routine but when it has to be, when the band decides to play a different song. The metronomic precision of Busquets is replaced by the slam-bang action of Mascherano as it seemed the team almost took on the character of that most important figure in Barça offensive lore, the DM that isn’t really, the man who pulls the strings and counts off the beat.

On Wednesday, at the intersection of tactics and an opponent desire for stasis, a football match broke out in which many wonderful things happened.

The most delightful aspect of the match, from this seat, has roots that can be found in a previous post that dealt with the fragility of the Barca ecosystem, a world without as much margin for error as it had when everyone was what they used to be. This, of course, makes you speculate about what might happen when that system didn’t function at its new norm, when the trident was for whatever reason missing a tine and things weren’t quite perfect.

What happened was a 3-1 victory over a high-quality opponent, a victory that has almost assured Barca a space in the Copa finals.

But strangely, it was a result facilitated by an opponent attempting to be tactical in the first leg of a home/away series and getting surprised. Villarreal came out doing what every away team does: sit back, try not to get killed, and hope to nick an away goal on the counter. In the past, that would have worked against Barça. Sit deep, put Messi in a cage, collect a goal and go home with confidence. This Barça is an anomaly in that it can score goals even against a deep block, and absorbs midfield pressure like a sponge.

Further complicating matters for Villarreal is that Enrique chose to play Mascherano in midfield instead of Busquets because, as he himself said, he wanted to stop the fast Villarreal counters. Further complicating things was the presence of Mathieu and Pique in the back line as well as an in-form Jordi Alba, making defense the base in a tight, pressing, nasty XI that was also designed to not concede any precious away goals.

In other words, Villarreal was screwed as knockout round stasis ran headlong into a coach and a team with a better plan and better players. When a team can stop you from scoring yet score itself, it doesn’t require a coaching genius to know that’s a bad outcome. You wonder what might have happened had Villarreal decided to try to pin Barca back by attacking, using offense as a form of defense. Probably an even more lopsided scoreline. As it was, their conservatism played right into Enrique’s hands because they weren’t as interested as usual in attacking, but were susceptible to a rather savage press when they did try to attack.

The first goal is an excellent example of this. As Villarreal tried to play out of their own end, Iniesta and Mascherano converged, forcing an error. A ravenous Suarez dispossessed the Villarreal player, pushed the ball forward and banged a perfect layoff for Messi to slot home. Messi got the goal, but that tally was the press and Suarez as well as a sign of this new Barca, a team that can play many different ways in defeating an opponent. Two of the three goals came from activation of the press as Barca could sit back and, functionally, attack when attacked. Villarreal would have, in the absence of a pell-mell defending by attacking stragegy, been better off putting 10 behind the ball, 8 in the box and calling it a day.

Another wonderful occurrence is that Barça didn’t play a complete match. This was more a professional dispatching of an inferior opponent, as the team played much like driving a car with a turbo engine. You cruise along until you have to really hit the gas, then fun things happen.

Neymar had one of those days, even missing a penalty that Messi decided to give him, probably as a pick-me-up as overall Barça didn’t play its best match, but it didn’t have to. 70 percent or so was more than sufficient to turn the trick, which delights because it means that suddenly this team has a margin for error. Neymar was fully committed to defending and tracking back to the detriment of his offensive game, a calculated risk that paid off. The down side was the attack didn’t move with the same alacrity as when Neymar is fully involved, but an opponent trying not to lose the tie in the first match helped that cause. There was something of a belief that he had a poor match mostly because he wasn’t his same attack-minded self, and missed a penalty. But he was donkey working all match long, teaming with the rest of the midfield fiends to disrupt, harry and disable.

But man, Iniesta. It’s too early to tell whether his dominating performance was a one-off, or the signs of a return, which would make fools out of many including me. But he was brilliant against Villarreal, dynamic and aggressive in a way different from past Iniesta. He was almost … direct, and even scored a goal as a reward for his work in the press, as a willing partner alongside Mascherano.

This team and its performance might have been the purest manifestation of a personality change, a taking on the visage of its coach and his titular captain. Mascherano was everywhere as Enrique smiled at his team’s … dare I say it … Atleti-like display, right down to a set piece goal.

The only thing really, that sullied the display was a Villarreal goal, a fluke of a shot that seemed to take a bit of a deflection, a shot that really should have been contested but Messi chose to stand there rather than running at the man with the ball. I reckon he thought that, like everyone else, “If dude can beat our keeper from there … ” He did.

Many culers wanted 4-1 or even 4-0, heading into the away leg at Villarreal. It’s understandable. But Barça would have to lose by a two-goal difference with Villarreal keeping a clean sheet at home. And as with Atleti away in the previous Copa round, it gets more complex if Barça scores. The 3-1 is excellent as the team heads into a rather fraught part of the season that will do a lot to decide its direction. Hosting both Levante and Malaga helps, going into the the knockout tie against Manchester City. Enrique will have decisions to make, but the rotation that was an early-season sign of a coach who didn’t know what he was doing should now result in the payoff of an entire team that is blooded and ready to fight.

As strange as it sounds, this Barça is in with a shot at the Treble, the only one of the Liga big three that can say that. Such talk is extremely premature, particularly from the flying fingers of one who predicted a silverless season. But just like a concert at which you don’t sit in anticipation of the triumphant encore, let’s enjoy the tunes and see how the gig shakes out.

The challenge of watching and enjoying a football team is to always focus on the team. FC Barcelona has, over its history but more so than now, makes that task particularly difficult.

As Barça lines up to take on Villarreal in the first (away) leg of the Copa semi-finals, that notion is worth thinking about.

Barça Twitter is a fascinating thing as, irrespective of the match result, it dissolves into factions. Most predominant is the “Ooooh, did you see what Messi did?!?” faction. But the other factions, not only on Barca Twitter but in this space, are just as interesting. That team focus is always a challenge.

— On Twitter, there were a few Tweets devoted to Jordi Alba and how he doesn’t make the correct decisions with Messi passes.

— Here, Rakitic is called out for not being something, or meeting a standard.

For me, the totality of the extraordinary thing that is happening tends to outweigh all of that, even as I can sit back, analyze the club and find things to point out in between making high-pitched, seal-like exclamations of glee. Because the TEAM … not any individual player … the TEAM is doing exceptionally well, far ahead of the schedule that I had mapped out in my addled brain.

The presence of a transcendent talent such as Messi makes anyone in their right mind squeal like an electrified pig. Duh. The challenge is in not losing sight of the team and how it is improving, as well as the path that it’s taken to reach that destination. The first thing to note is that Messi is wonderful, and we should all thank our stars that he is in the colors, but so much of the reason he is kicking so much ass is because of the team, and the improved team. Alves is better, so Messi is better. Rakitic is better, so Messi is better. Busquets is improving, so Messi is better.

What’s interesting is that you can shift and play with that analogy for almost any player on the team. Messi is moving and tracking the ball more, so Pique is better. Busquets is better, so Pique is better. Alba is more cognizant of not getting caught in a difficult position, so Pique is better. Alves doesn’t need as much help from Raktic, so Pique is better.

Barça has become a team of interlocking influences, something that sits at the core of the group’s increased effectiveness. Things looked a mess early in the season because it was a collection of individuals with somewhat related talents, capering about. Now it’s a team that understands how those talents relate to and affect the talents of the person next to him. Rakitic isn’t supposed to be Xavi, because Xavi is Xavi. No other player alive is Xavi. Xavi isn’t even Xavi any longer. That template doesn’t fit into this team as it is currently playing.

At the same time Rakitic is a more dynamic midfielder who works with Xavi or Iniesta because he influences the game in ways that have as much to do with positioning as making things that can be directly pointed to. He’s tackling a ball or tracking a man. He’s Keita, for lack of a better comparison, another player who people said they didn’t understand the value of. It’s easy to say that Rakitic lost his man on the Athletic break, but without looking at the totality of the goal-scoring attacks that had at their genesis, lost balls by Messi (the first) and Busquets (the second), both in the worst place to lose the ball against a pressing team, midfield, it’s tough to make a case for anyone really being at fault. Falling dominoes, really.

It’s the complexity of the wholistic view of things. Does a goal conceded follow the garbage in, garbage out pathway, or is it “Well, it was that dude because I noticed him more.” I’m a fan of garbage in, garbage out. A lost ball means nobody has time to set, and with a team in which everyone is attacking and defending, nobody is where they need to be, making defending a more complex proposition than it would be if an opponent’s attack wasn’t building from an error in a dangerous part of the pitch.

For example, for the first Athletic goal, when Messi loses the ball, Pique and Mathieu are the only ones back. Alves is dashing back to get into position, Alba is still moving forward. Rakitic is trying to get back into some sort of position, and Busquets is just screwed. Athletic have 6 players in the immediate area around the ball. In the ensuing scramble, 5 Barça players are ball watching as Mathieu moves over to protect the left wing that he already senses Alba isn’t going to be able to. I will also suggest, Mascherano’s undesirability in the back line for many notwithstanding, that he would probably have prevented that initial pass into the box with a ball block that Mathieu failed to make.

Alves is running to the ball, basically everybody is running to the ball. This happens in a panic situation, even to the best defenses. The capability of sticking to the plan, finding a man and keeping him from doing anything to hurt you is difficult. But had Alves done that instead of running to the ball, his man wouldn’t have been free for the put back.

So who is to “blame” for that goal? Any one of about seven players could have done something to prevent it. Why didn’t somebody just foul someone who had the ball, before they got into the box? None of our players did anything effective because of the peculiar set of stresses that turned possession in midfield against a pressing team presents. And voila.

Scored goals are as (usually) collective as conceded ones.

Tactics devotees fascinate me because they can easily see the interrelated sequences that result in a result. It takes me a few viewings to understand what happened fully. But stuff like that makes watching the game fun. But what makes the game difficult to analyze, even more than a lack of that sort of immediate tactical nous, is losing sight of the team part of things. Messi is better because the team is better. It’s that simple, at the core of the matter. Everything is better because everyone is better and that’s wonderful, because individuals with Ballons d’Or. Teams with championships. Further, a great team is a collective of collectively maximized individuals, and what’s most exciting for me is that Barça is moving toward that ideal, something we haven’t seen in a long time. Let’s enjoy the trip.

There was much irony in the two goals scored by Athletic Bilbao, moments that will make history believe that they were actually, at some point, in this match.

Both goals had as their genesis moments of lost midfield possession by members of a team whose detractors allege doesn’t cherish the midfield OR possession as it should. And the defensive shambles created by those flaws was no more acute than it has been at any time in this team’s storied history, despite what the burnished patina of memory might suggest.

And if you listened carefully, just off in the distance you could make out the groaning springs and creaking suspension of people hopping back on a bandwagon as semantic malleability rears its head from many a person who but a short time ago was banging a #luchoout social media hashtag, or suggesting that this team’s coach, Luis Enrique, was in over his head.

It’s funny what time does to things. Eat a hunk of raw pizza dough and it tastes pretty crappy. Give the chef time to season it, bake it, add the right ingredients and serve it properly, and things are a different proposition. So it is with this Barça, a team that is even defeating my predictions that it wouldn’t come together with quite this level of effectiveness this season, that there were too many questions still lingering.

But it’s worth asking whether that rather routine loss at the already-jinxed ground of La Anoeta was cause or circumstance, as the team has won every match since then. There are, after all, many ways to learn not to put your hand on a fire. Your parent can tell you 20 times, or you can do it once. Both provide the same lesson, albeit at a different price. This Barça didn’t seem to believe that it was as delicate as it was. You could almost imagine them looking at the roster and saying “Sheeeee, we got this,” and not doing everything possible, not fully believing a coach who said not only are you NOT as good as you think, but if you do things my way, I can help you get there.

It took that listless morass of a belly-up to drive lessons home. There were so many thoughts about the match, so many people who screamed for Enrique’s head for not starting Messi, Neymar and Suarez, people who forgot that they were out there in the second half, when they couldn’t do it against a team that already had a scrambled, crazy half of football in its legs. For me, that loss was a symptom of something easier and more difficult to track. It is often said that Enrique was clueless as he coached this team, but you wonder if the team wasn’t also clueless, didn’t quite have a handle on what it took to accomplish tasks with great players who were still great, but had acquired flaws due to nothing more than the passage of time and what it does to athletes.

The weekend began with an object lesson as Atleti destroyed its capitol city rival in the derby, doing so by applying absurd pressure that destroyed the RM midfield and made building anything close to impossible. That display made it fairly easy to go back and watch the Barça vs Atleti matches and the de-emphasized midfield as the team played with a directness that removed the opponent’s principal weapon. And as people snarled “We have no midfield,” you could be forgiven for wondering if it was a flaw or a tactic? You might further be forgiven for wondering about the lack of patience that is endemic in the game and how it is covered these days.

Today’s headlines blare that “Barça Liga favorites,” and “RM in crisis.” But it wasn’t that long ago that RM was being compared to l’annus Guardiolus and Barça was in crisis. Seems some modulation of that rheostat of punditry is in order, just as there should be of necessity some consideration as a supporter. You don’t have to blindly, unquestioningly support your team. But it isn’t unreasonable to expect time for things to fall into shape before declarations are made. As Xavi said, Barça isn’t as good as many say, or as bad as many say. It’s a football team that is coming into shape and form, that we should deal with using that template.

The best part is that you’re then able to have fun with a match such as yesterday’s, instead of having to wrestle with the back flips necessary to not seem like the curmudgeon sitting in the corner. Barça has dropped zero points since La Anoeta, and the Athletic match was a perfect illustration as to why. This team has become a stylistic amoeba. As Enrique said, you’d be nuts not to take advantage of the space being offered by a pressing team who was also packing the midfield. Atleti did it, and it was the same result. This is worth noting because pretty much since Anoeta, Barça has been becoming the team that many hoped it would become when Neymar was signed, a turbocharged version of Barça football, with liberal doses of “Wheeee!”

Tata Martino started that sort of transformation, then backed off. He seemed to care what people thought. Enrique has no such constraints, and the result is a crazy, hazy version of total football adapted to a front three possessed of astonishing levels of skill on and off the ball. Good luck trying to figure out who was playing where. Busquets was in the Alves role as he spanked that assist to Pedro. Alba had the most passes on the team. Xavi was diving at a submarine header off a Messi pass, Neymar was tackling the ball to make an interception outside the Barça box. Everybody was everywhere in a living, breathing adaptation of the Ray Hudson chestnut that involves trying to nail Jello to the ceiling.

Let’s look at the goals:

— The first was just a crazy free kick that took a deflection or two, and just eluded the clutching hands of the keeper. Messi’s wry grin as he celebrated was pretty much all you needed to know.
— The second was a Pique long pass out of the back to Neymar, who headed it perfectly to Suarez who held up play a bit so that Messi could arrive. He slid the ball to Messi and then hung back, knowing the defense would be unsettled. Messi took note of that, fed a trailing Suarez, who smoked it home.
— The third was born of a midfield interception. A Rakitic pass to Suarez saw the Uruguayan get the ball in the box and draw three defenders, while Messi and Neymar capered in. Suarez crossed, and that was that. It was credited as an own goal.
— The fourth was a Rakitic run, pass to Messi who alertly saw Neymar streaking in and fed him. Neymar made a difficult finish look easy.
— The last was the most beautiful, a blinding passing sequence that even included Busquets getting fouled and Messi holding up play until Busquets could get up and make the run into the box. He crossed to Pedro, who slotted home on the doorstep.

Except for the Messi free kick, these weren’t goals born of the kind of individual brilliance that people like to scoff at. They were team goals, which is the principal reason I won’t march in lock step with the “Messi was wonderful” stories and testimonials that came after the match. He was, but this was as complete a team performance as I have seen in some time, worth celebrating precisely because of that beauty. Yes, Messi was a catalyst and a force. So was Neymar, Suarez, Alba, Pique, Busquets, you name it. But Messi had his team game on display for a few reasons, most importantly because he understands that he is playing with people he can trust.

When was the last time Messi was in the box and didn’t shoot at goal? When he laid that ball off for a streaking Suarez to unleash a piledriver from outside the box, he was saying, with silent eloquence, “Welcome to Barça, teammate.” Does Messi lay that ball off for Pedro or Munir? Not likely. Much is being made of Messi’s assists this season, but he is assisting because it hasn’t been since he played alongside Eto’o and Henry that he had people he could play with in full confidence. No, that isn’t a knock on Pedro and Villa, but it would be inflating their abilities to claim that they were anything other than what they were. In Neymar and Suarez, Messi has two players who are in their own ways every bit as dangerous as he is. Neymar is scoring goals at an absurd rate, because he is, strangely enough, the third of three evils after Messi and Suarez. It’s worth thinking about how open most of his shots are as he capitalizes on the chaos created by the other two tines of the trident.

Luis Enrique has predicated his attack on a very simple thing: You can’t stop all three of them. Say that “Barça don’t have a plan” all you like, but that IS a plan, to structure the attack in a way that capitalizes on the quality of three of the best attackers in the game. As the trio works together and grow in confidence with each other, it’s only natural that Messi will become more and more of a team player. He believes in his cohorts, and he should. There’s no need for him to run at 5 defenders, and no point. So he feints, stops and slides the ball to someone else to do damage. It’s wonderful, and wonderful to witness.

Messi is always worth celebrating, but for me he is never better than when he is doing his genius thing within the team’s framework, mostly because it makes him functionally unplayable. Play him for the run, and he passes. Play him for the pass, and he runs. In the past, because it was easy to wall off Pedro, a defense could control Messi. Even when it was Neymar and Pedro, a defense could take its chance that Pedro isn’t going to be the one to kill you, and wall off Messi and Neymar. Adding Suarez makes that task a fool’s errand.

Complicating matters for opponents is that the midfield is on board with the program. Xavi was here, Xavi was there, Xavi was in the box heading a ball home, Xavi was there, controlling a pass. To be sure, there is less control from this edition of Barça, but significantly more danger. Athletic scored, and Barça scored. Then scored again, for good measure. A significant part of that midfield adaptability was Busquets, who played one of the best matches I have seen from him in some time. In a recent piece in this space, I mused about the possibility of moving forward without the reference in Busquets, who it seems has little interest in being left behind. He was a metronome, and on defense, some shaky moments aside, more of a negative influence than a destructive force, and he was brilliant as the team built its attacks at times in that traditional Barça way that so many still expect.

Finally, a shout-out for Gerard Pique, who has been enjoying some exceptional form of late. All you need to know about Pique is that he took a blast of a shot in a way that, for a moment left him with an additional and wholly unwanted ball. He lay there long enough to thank the stars for his second child having already arrived, leapt to his feet and intervened in another defensive effort. Exemplary, and yet another example of this game’s willingness to bury someone who isn’t even all that sick.

Name after name came up to replace Pique, who was deemed washed up, an no-longer-effective playboy married to a glamorous pop star. Enrique sat him down, with the option of getting his mind (and thus his game) right. He did. It’s no coincidence that Enrique’s building from the back, with a defensive foundation, has found its fullest flower now that Pique has returned to form.

This weekend begs for comparisons to be made — Messi and Ronaldo, Barça and RM, yin and yang — but you should resist in favor of something vastly more interesting: a football team that now has its destiny in its own hands. The task is simple: win matches, win a championship. Whether that is possible remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure — the challenge will be fun to watch.

It’s the “black hand.” When in doubt, calling upon a conspiracy can be effective.

Conspiracies are quite useful because they can’t be disproved. Even if nothing happened, believers can still say “Well, we just don’t know that something didn’t happen.” It’s what makes them so effective. Conspiracy theories have something for everyone, and everyone will ultimately believe what they choose to believe. Beliefs give us comfort. It’s their principal virtue.

Look at the recent social media storm when Marca said that RM was looking to sign Seung-Woo Lee, the bright, shining star of La Masia and the player allegedly at the root of the transfer ban when envy from another club made someone rat on Barça. That certainly might have happened, but had the club’s business been correct the snitch could have squealed to the heavens, to no avail. Anyhow.

People went nuts in social media, claiming that there was a sniff of veracity to the rumor, citing a couple of allegedly solid sources, etc. The board is that stupid, after all they sold Thiago, blablabla. People like me said, essentially, “Y’all cray. It’s illogical.” Then the player came out and said through his representatives that he isn’t going anywhere. And people breathed a sigh of relief that something that was never going to happen, didn’t happen.
Continue Reading

“Boom!”

What an extraordinary match of football, one that for me was most interesting in the way that it tested the mettle of this Barça side.

It’s easy to scoff and say that “It’s only Villarreal,” but this was a team that today suffered only its second road loss and was unbeaten in its last 10 before coming to the Camp Nou. It’s also a team of talented, intelligent, well-coached players that will be a handful in the coming Copa semi-final tie.

The challenge for a team is always, “What will you do when you’re punched in the face?” In 3 matches against Atleti, the last most notably at their house, and then at home today, Barça was punched in the face via a pair of goals that were a comedy of errors more than any sort of indictment of the defense, even as culers were waiting for the defense to concede, for Pique to make an error so that the shouts of “A-ha!” could begin, in a world in which even good things are suspect, failure masquerading as success.
Continue Reading