Two images stand out from from last night’s game between FC Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao whose final score failed to undermine Real Madrid’s increasingly unassailable leadership at the top of La Liga.
The first has the two ‘misters’ Pep Guardiola and Marcelo Bielsa, like the philosophers of football that they are , directing their pupils as if the nature of existence itself was being defined there and then . It is a study in contrasts- Guardiola intense and ephemeral as an El Greco saint, Bielsa ‘El Loco’ , a cross between General Peron in mid-speach and a a caged lion- that belies a unity of vision, a shared belief in how football can and should be played. .
The second is that of the suggestion of emotion that just for an instant seems to take hold of Lionel Messi as he walks out on to the Camp Nou and sees a huge banner unfurled in tribute to him. This is not just the moment when Barca fans acknowledged his goal-scoring prowess- more goals than another players in the club’s history. It is also a signal that finally the time had come for Messi to take charge, to show himself capable of leadership .
Guardiola and Bielsa share a belief in endeavour and aestheticism. They make their players work hard but imaginatively . They believe a in a fluid, passing game, in working the ball up the pitch, in preference to thumping it. Each have moulded a team into a collective belief system.
Messi has to prove that he can not only inspire FC Barcelona, but also lead Argentina to a World Cup victory. That should settle once and fall the debate as to whether or not he is better than Maradona who first arrived at Barcelona as a young player nearly thiry years ago.
Maradona’s two years in the Catalan capital during the early 1980’s were overshadowed by the protracted verbal war beween Barca’s then manager, the Argentine Cesar Menotti and Athletic ’s Javier Clemente over football, and a punch-up in the final between the two clubs in the Copa del Rey.
It’s good to see FC Barcelona and Athletic respecting each other more these days, and Messi increasingly showing greater maturity than Maradona ever had.
