There is something lethargic about FC Barcelona’s play this season. For a club that defines itself through its love of the ball, it was notable that Real Sociedad had more of it than Barça during their 1-1 draw in La Liga last Sunday night.
The Basque team enjoyed 52 per cent possession. It was only the second time since May 7th, 2008 that Barça ceded more of the ball to its opponents in a game. That May day is an ignominious date in Barça's history. Its players had to form a pre-match pasillo – or guard of honour – for the newly crowned league champions, Real Madrid, at the Bernabéu stadium, this before Lionel Messi & Co were thumped 4-1. Real Madrid won the league that season with 18 points to spare on Barça in third place.
The Catalan club was in freefall. After years of plenty – including back-to-back league titles and a Champions League win in 2006 – decadence had set in. The team’s star players, Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto’o, were fighting with each other. Ronaldinho was offloaded during the off season; Eto’o left a year later.
The team’s manager Frank Rijkaard was stressed out and had fled the bosom of his family to stay in a hotel near the Camp Nou. He, too, was gone in the summer, to make way for Pep Guardiola, who subsequently won 14 trophies in four seasons.
Luis Enrique, Guardiola’s old team-mate, has scaled similar heights as manager over the last two years, emulating Guardiola’s treble feat, for example. Cracks in the edifice have, however, started to appear this season.
Enrique, whose contract expires at the end of the season and whose mop of curly hair has greyed visibly in a couple of years, has yet to commit his future to the club. He has openly fed the gossipmongers by discussing in his press conferences the merits of candidates who might replace him.
Among the names being touted as a successor – including Everton’s Ronald Koeman – are Real Sociedad’s coach Eusebio Sacristán, a member of Johan Cruyff’s “Dream Team” of the 1990s and a former Barça B coach.
Real Sociedad are fifth in the table and were unlucky to only tie with Barça at San Sebastián’s Anoeta Stadium. Enrique said it was a “miracle” that Barça managed to escape with a point. A legitimate goal for Real Sociedad was ruled offside, which would have made the difference.
Poorest start
The Catalan press have been feasting on the entrails of several recent lacklustre performances. Barça are enduring their poorest start to a season in over a decade. “Barcelona are embarrassing,” wrote
La Vanguardia
in despair the morning after the Real Sociedad match; and this from a newspaper that is normally conservative in its editorial tone.
Most galling of all was that Real Sociedad overran Barça. “Change the shirts and you wouldn’t think that the other team was Barcelona,” said Enrique, adding that it was the worst Barça performance of his time managing the team. Gerard Piqué was also brutally frank in a pitch-side interview after the full-time whistle, saying it was down to his team-mates’ poor “attitude”.
In the first half, Barcelona lost the corner count 8-0. Remarkably, they failed to get inside Real Sociedad’s box until the 41st minute. By the half-time break, Barcelona’s goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen had completed more outfield passes than any of his outfield team-mates. That Barcelona are resorting to the long ball from its goalie is instructive.
Enrique has overhauled Barcelona’s playing style, favouring more direct – or “vertical” as it’s described in Spain – play. It was born out of necessity. Barcelona’s keep-ball play had become stale and predictable under his predecessor, Tata Martino (who left the job after failing to win a trophy), and when you have Messi, Neymar Jr and Luis Suárez playing up front it’s sensible to get them the ball as quickly as possible.
The trio are part of the problem now, though, just like free-scoring Jonah Lomu’s inability to turn quickly in defence used to expose the All Blacks rugby team. Real Sociedad striker Carlos Vela identified them as a weakness for Barça after last weekend’s game, mentioning: “Three of their players work less.”
Vela’s team targeted their poor appetite for defending. Barcelona’s style is built on two fundamental principles: when you have the ball, look for space; when you don’t have it, get it back quickly. The second part comes from tigerish pressing, which starts high up the field with its front three players.
When MSN – as the Messi-Suárez-Neymar axis is called – abdicate their defensive duties, the team are debilitated. Messi has always ambled about during games, but a player who has scored more than 40 club goals a season in seven consecutive years has licence to kick back if he so cares.
Worse drought
More alarming is the ennui that has taken hold of Suárez, who is usually demonic in pursuit of the ball. He looks sluggish of late. The goals are drying up for him too, having scored only once in the last five games.
Neymar Jr is going through a worse drought, having failed to find the net in open play since September. Of course, the Brazilian has been enduring untold pressure off the field, as his national team coach Tite made clear in an interview with Reuters earlier this week. He said it was naïve to think that the 24-year-old’s play wasn’t being affected by the legal cloud that hangs over him: “It is a lie to say he is coming to work and leaving all his problems off the field.”
In July, a Madrid court dismissed a case of alleged irregularities into Barça’s 2013 transfer of Neymar Jr from Santos in Brazil. A deal between the clubs was initially quoted as being worth €57.1 million. In reality, it’s closer to €100 million, a hole in the accounts that led to the resignation of FC Barcelona’s club president Sandro Rosell in January 2014.
That court ruling was overturned in September. Neymar Jr, his father, who acts as his agent, and the player’s mother, who is a 50 per cent shareholder of the family company N&N all face corruption charges, as does Rosell, although charges have been dropped against current FC Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu. The public prosecutor is demanding that Neymar Jr be sent to prison for two years.
The Brazilian is having no luck. On his way to meeting up with his team-mates last Sunday morning for the match against Real Sociedad, he crashed his Ferrari 458 Spider. He was unhurt, but the damaged sports car had to be removed from the motorway by crane.
On the pitch, Barça's once regal midfield has been dismantled. Xavi Hernández is playing out his final days in Qatar. Andrés Iniesta (32) will likely return for this afternoon's clásico against Real Madrid at the Camp Nou after suffering a knee injury against Valencia six weeks ago. His guile has been sorely missed.
Opposition teams have targeted Sergio Busquets – the third musketeer from that vaunted midfield trio – repeatedly. They have been sacking him in possession like an isolated quarterback.
Golden generation
Barça are also missing Dani Alves, who was sold to Juventus during the summer, and those tireless raids he used to make down the right-hand flank, linking up especially well with Messi to unpick defences with 1-2 manoeuvres. Sergi Roberto who has been deputising as a converted right back is a fine player, but he’s not an unpredictable, world-class operator like Alves.
It’s no surprise that Barça are having trouble replacing a golden generation. It can’t even get its back-up plans right on the transfer market. In the summer, it coughed up €123 million for six squad players. None of them has scored a goal yet for the club.
About €32 million was spent on Paco Alcácer, bought as a fourth striker to drop into games occasionally when one of the MSN was injured or needed resting. He has been atrocious. He went 31 minutes, for instance, without touching the ball in a 0-0 draw against Malaga in a mid-November league match.
But at least he shows up. Aleix Vidal, who was bought in the summer of 2015 to deputise on the right side of defence for Alves, was absent for the Real Sociedad game because he was on his honeymoon.
Despite the awful fare his starting team were offering up to him, it was significant that Enrique only made one change in the game against Real Sociedad, bringing on Denis Suárez at half-time for Ivan Rakitic.
Only eight of Enrique’s players have scored goals this season. This compares with 19 from Real Madrid’s more balanced squad. Real Madrid also have in their ranks the leading scorer in this season’s La Liga, Cristiano Ronaldo. He will be looking to add to the 13 goals he has scored in this tie over the years.
And should Real Madrid win, it will stretch their lead over Barça at the top of the table to nine points. It remains to be seen if the sight of Real Madrid at the Camp Nou will shake some life into Barcelona. Their season could hinge on it.
