It was all rosy for FC Barcelona under the able stewardship
of the then first team coach, Pep Guardiola, who himself just got promoted to
the first team from the youth set-up [Barcelona B] in 2008 after Frank Rijkaard
had departed the Camp Nou. He was a product of the Barcelona first team during
his playing days and was a member of Johan Cruyff’s dream team that won the
club’s first European cup, and so was almost the perfect man for the job,
considering he had in-depth knowledge of the club: its philosophy and ideology.
Barcelona’s excellent crisp and appealing tiki taka-style football
won the admiration of many neutrals across the footballing fraternity and had
gained prominence the more after Pep took over the reigns as coach. They
dominated games, possession-wise and in all attacking departments as they used
their potent attack as their defense weapon. This Guardiola era saw the team
built around the likes of Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi, Carles
Puyol and Victor Valdes, and the team swept aside other teams for fun, even
Real Madrid who once dominated world football could not match them.
In Guardiola’s first four years at the helm, the team won a
whooping fourteen trophies including a treble in his first season in charge.
Despite all their dominance, they always struggled against ultra-defensive opponents,
though they bossed possession from start to finish. See teams like Chelsea
Inter Milan and AC Milan for instance. Barcelona always struggled against these
teams and a few other defensive opponents in the Spanish League. Under Pep,
Barcelona was eliminated from the champions’ league 3-2 on aggregate by an
overly defensive Inter Milan who would go on to win the trophy against Bayern
Munich in the final in 2010.
Despite all their successes, Barcelona had problems at the
back and their inability to resort to a plan B against ultra-defensive opponents,
cost them. Chelsea also dumped them out of the champions’ league by putting up
a very good defensive shift in both legs of the game, which kept Barcelona at
bay for extended periods of the games. A rare Fernando Torres wonder goal
helped Chelsea salvage a 2-2 draw in a pulsating encounter which had Chelsea
play close to forty five minutes with ten men after Captain John Terry was sent
off for kneeing Alexis Sanchez.
Pep announced earlier in 2012 that he would take a year’s
sabbatical off the game in order to regain and replenish lost energies, at the time,
the team had lost their stranglehold of the Spanish League trophy to Jose
Mourinho’s Real Madrid and so won just the UEFA supercup,Copa Del Rey and Club
World Cup. Assistant Tito Vilanova would take over the first team, and not much
was expected to change according to some pundits since Tito was an active
assistant to Pep all the years. He took over the team for pre-season
preparations for the 2012/2013 season, where they defeated Hamburg in Hamburg’s
anniversary match, followed it by mauling Raja Casablanca 8-0,then a 2-2 draw
against cash-rich Paris St Germain in Paris, then a goalless stalemate with
Manchester United and finally a 2-0 win over Dynamo Bucharest. An impressive
pre-season which raised the hopes of the team after they lost the Spanish super
cup to Madrid over two legs, which ended 3-2 on aggregate.
Real Sociedad was the first to fall victim to Barcelona’s massacre,
they were walloped by five goals to one but there was no denying this Barcelona
team were suspect in defense and conceded a goal, they concede another against
Osasuna in a game in which they trailed for long periods, but only had their
Argentine wizard to thank for turning the scores around. A clean sheet followed
against Valencia, then conceded another in the match against Getafe, and then a
further two goals conceded in their champions league match against Spartak Moscow.
Another rare clean sheet followed against Granada, then conceded two more goals
versus Seville and kept a clean sheet versus Benfica in the champions League
then a 2-2 draw to Madrid, followed by game they won 5-4 but conceded as many
as four goals. All of this while defenders Carles Puyol was in and out of
action for one injury problem or another and Pique had lost form. A 2-1 win
over Celtic was next in the Champions League, then rare clean sheets followed
against Rayo Vallecano and Alaves.They resumed business as usual by conceding a
goal more in the match against Celta Vigo, lost 2-1 to Celtic in the return leg
of the champions league, conceded two goals against Mallorca, and a goal
against Real Zaragoza, then two clean sheets followed against Spartak Moscow
and Levante, a goal conceded against Alaves, another against Athletic Bilbao.
Barcelona kept one more against Benfica in the champions’ league, conceded
again versus Real Betis, and another against Atletico Madrid, between which
they kept clean against Cordoba in the Copa Del Rey.
3-1 the game ended between Barcelona and Valladolid, after
which followed two clean sheets against Espanyol and Cordoba.3-1 against Malaga
and a surprise 3-2 loss to Real Sociedad, in a game they failed to use a plan B
aside tiki taka and shipped in three, two more they conceded in the game
against Malaga in the Copa and one conceded against each of Osasuna, Real Madrid,
Valencia and Getafe continuously. Shipped in two more goals in a champion’s
league game versus Milan which they lost, and then another against Sevilla.A
run of twelve or so games in all competitions without a clean sheet for the team,
and this turned worse when Madrid inflicted back to back defeats on them with
Barcelona conceding four goals over the two games. Two clean sheets would
follow with one against Deportivo and the other an astonishing comeback against
AC Milan in the champions’ league where they overturned a 2-0 deficit to win
4-0 in the return leg. Following from the brief spell of keeping clean sheets,
the team returned to what has been the story all season by conceding a goal to
Rayo Vallecano, a total of some 43 goals and counting, the Barcelona team has shipped
in all season across all competitions and a meager 13 clean sheets kept.
Clearly this shows how defensively fragile this Barcelona
team can be, they have been near shambolic all season and this does not look
like ending any time soon, considering they do not have the men for the
job.Puyol has outlived his usefulness in playing the game and has only become
an injury bug, Piqué on the other hand has been inconsistent all season and so
has Alves and Adriano.Puyol in two big
games against Milan and Madrid was left for dead by Niang and Di Maria
respectively which in both cases resulted in a goal, Piqué was as well roasted
by Cristiano Ronaldo in the first of the two league classicos versus Madrid
this season.
Barcelona have been all over the place defensively all
season and as expected, they have struggled in games against Osasuna, Seville,
Deportivo and Sociedad,Milan and all the Classicos this season. Especially
against Milan, this Barcelona team looked clueless in attack and defense, yet
stuck to tiki taka without using a plan B because they do not have one.
Defending set-plays has also been one of the problems of the team.
Many people believe the league is long won by Barcelona, but
I totally disagree, with this defensive set-up and a few more plucky and tricky
encounters on the cards, I believe they could still drop points. On the
evidence of this leaky backline, teams such as Atletico Madrid, Levante, Real
Betis and Malaga could prove tough customers for the league leaders. Barcelona
desperately needs a plan B, so that in the event opponents park the bus they
could still scrap through and get the wins. Perhaps getting an arrow
head[target] in the opposition box and use of the wings to devastating effect,
so wingers could float all the balls in for the target to feed off and get the
goals and not always attempt walking the ball into the net of opponents could
help. Most importantly, the club must recruit two or three natural
defenders[not midfielders] to boost their personnel in the defensive areas
during the summer, else I do not see this Barcelona team dominating world
football anytime soon after this season, especially after Madrid have got the
psychological edge over them in recent
games. OK,so Barcelona did not sign a defender during the summer window,
instead added Brazilian wonderboy,Neymar to their ranks. Maybe he could help
reduce the burden off the shoulders of the world’s best player. Let’s see how
they fare,especially as Madrid themselves employed the services of Spanish young
star, Isco and Gareth Bale,who is momentarily the world’s most expensive player
after sealing his 86m pounds move to the bernabeu club.The die is cast,the
battle of the spanish powerhouses,bring it on!meanwhile Atletico Madrid have
thus far made a strong case for title contention winning 15 out of a possible 15
points in the new league season.
Story by Kingsley Komla Adom
Ghana Institute of Journalism,
E-mail-kingsleykomla@gmail.com.20th
September, 2013
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