Having travelled with and sat and stood among the couple of thousand-odd Barca fans at last night’s Champions League semi-final away match tie between their team and Bayern Munich, it is hard not to share in the feeling of desolation provoked by its outcome.
The majority of these visiting fans in the huge impressive Allianz Arena stadium were in their twenties, part of a generation that has grown up finding in the success of their club and the respect for it worldwide one of the few genuinely positive aspects of a life overshadowed by debt and unemployment, and yet fuelled with a passion for Catalan identity they express waving independence flags and shouting unprintable verbal abuse at Jose Mourinho and Real Madrid.
They were joined in Munich by a smaller contingent of middle-aged and largely middle-class cules (Barca fans) who have followed the club in bad times as well as good times but for whom last night’s match caused, similarly, profound shock, no doubt adding to the general sense of political and social uncertainty provoked by Catalunya’s tortuously ill-defined road map to independence.
This was not defeat, at the hands of Bayern, suffered through poor referee decisions or fluke opposition goals. This was a comprehensive thrashing by a team that on the night showed themselves superior across positions and in every aspect of the game. For those with longer memories, there was a sense of having been there before-back in 1994, when Johan Cruyff’s ‘Dream Team’ were beaten by a similar score line by AC Milan in the Champions League final in Athens.
Certainly there is a sense today, as there was then , that, barring a miracle in the second-leg at the Nou Camp, and despite on track to win the Spanish league, FC Barcelona may have reached the end of an era of unrivalled international supremacy- a feeling, if the truth be told that been growing in the world of football ever since Barca won its last champions league trophy in May 2011 although-let us not forget –it was Barca who helped world champions Spain win the European championship for the second time in two consecutive tournaments in 2012.
And yet while Barca ‘s dream of a third Wembley final may effectively be over for now, I do not believe that the club is entering an extended period in the European doldrums similar to that which it suffered during and long after the Di Stefano years of the 1950’s . Nor for that matter do I believe that the era of Spanish football –whether at club or national team level-generally is at an end.
Barca urgently needs some important repair work-rather than simple fine tuning- but it is not an irrevocably broken team of beyond sell-by dates. It can still count on players of world class star qualitythe likes of Iniesta, Busquets, Xavi, Jordi Alba, and Pedro- that on better days will deliver. Its key component, Lionel Messi, is not a player that has peaked. It would be absurd to consider his lacklustre performance last night as anything other than largely the consequence of a mistaken decision to have him played not fully fit against an opponent of the calibre of Bayern Munich.
That said Barca can no longer afford to be Messi-dependent when the chips are down. It is desperately in need of an attacking player-other than Messi and not Villa or Alexis– that can be relied upon to be sufficiently versatile to suit Barca’s style and to score with consistency in top European games against tough well organised opponents. That killer streak-and by that I mean effective, accurate goal scoring- seems so often lacking in Barca’s patient build up play and occasional counter-attacking forays. But I don’t think Barca needs to change its style. It need to reorganise and strengthen itself in a way that the style does not become an end in itself but the effective conduit for a more effective attacking as well as defensive options. It has young some young talent that has come up through the youth team, who have shown this ability, but this should not stop Barca going for some transfers, both buying and selling players.
And it needs a manager capable of imposing a collective ethos on Barca that all players, not least Messi can adhere to, while retaining the sufficient tactical flexibility and element of surprise to confuse, outmanoeuvre and ultimately defeat the opposition. Here I fear one comes to the heart of the matter for it necessitates generating a public debate around an issue which has thus far been far been avoided by FC Barcelona for perfectly legitimate reasons of human decency and respect: the question of Tito Villanova’s health and the extent to which this may be impacting on his ability to face up to the challenges of the job.
Amidst the powerfully regimented mass support of the Bayern fans for their team last night, and faced with the tactical and strategic precision of the German champions , Tito cut a particularly forlorn figure on the touchline as he watched the dispirited shambles of his own players, seemingly unable to put it right, and leaving Barca fans obsessively hoping that Mourinho’s Real Madrid doesn’t end up getting to Wembley and winning.
I agree with both the substance and the sentiment of this piece. On the subject of yesterday’s game, I have to admit that the tactical approach to the game was confusing at best. Tito went into the game knowing fully well that our biggest defficiency was the central defense. Given that both Xavi and Iniesta are not great defenders, common sense would dictate that you shore up that department by playing either Song or even Abidal in front of Batra and Pique in addition to Busquets to maintain a solid defensive posture. After all, you want to come away with a result that gives you a fair enough chance to advance.
Secondly, Messi ‘s injury is so incapacitating that he should never have been played. Yet, he played him along with Sanchez who was never going to score. I came away from the game with so much admiration for Messi and what he has meant to our offense.
Going forward, the team needs to play with pace, with lots and lots of speed. Our players have the requisite skill to execute our offense in a flash. Our current pace helps our opponents. The team also need to shed the deadwood up front. Villa has been amazing to us and has given his best to the team; Alexis play his heart in every game. But both of them no longer can deliver on a consistent basis and fulfill our expectations and so needs to be replaced with real poachers who are quick. The team needs two serious central defenders to provide depth and insurance in case of injury.
I am disappointed but I don’t feel the doom and gloom been prophesied in Madrid. If we make the right adjustments, we will be great again.
Yes Jimmy, the Allianz Arena stadium is very impressive, as witnessed when I was there last May and saw the glorious Chelsea team take the European Cup from Bayern Munich in their own stadium!!!
No boring politics from the magnificent Blue fans – on that night we don’t want London separated from England, we just supported our team, sang, cheered and then saw them triumph. Yes, lovely memories of Munich on a balmy May night.
Bundesliga 8 – La Liga 1
The King is Dead..Long live the King
As Paul Doyle writes in today’s Guardian: “There is an infectious joy and admirable fairness about the way Bayern and, especially, Dortmund play, making their domination somehow more thrillingly human than the tiki-taka tyrants.” (love those 2 words: thrilling + tyrant).
As I have been saying for some years in your blog, the affixiating and sterile football that Barcelona play, with 70%+ possession is ultimately BORING and kills the excitement and thrill of football.
At last La Liga’s tiki-taka style has been shown up for what it is in the 2 Champions semi-finals 1st legs.
At least you seem to respond and acknowledge a few of my recent comments:
– Peps deserting the team after the defeat to Chelsea was the beginning of the end. Tito is not up to it.
– Barça’s way out is via the cheque book – yes, buy some new stars as you have done for the last 5 decades…forget the home grown players, not good enough
– The repair work is to change style. Forget Pep & Cruyff, and the Cule Bible. Bury possession football.
So a new era begins and one just wonders if it means the end of the national team too. Will Spain fail to retain the World Cup?
In my opinion the mauling defeat of Munich it was a victory, after a few years of style criticism (barça has boring way of win) in the worst defeat nobody has said we need to change the way we play. I sadly remember the 18 of may of 1994, it was defeated in champions league final by AC Milan some people try to show it was the defeat of the Barça style and the victory of pragmatism.
9th of July of 1994, Boston, United States, quarter finals of world championship, Mauro Tassoti hit with the elbow Luis Enrique, the Hungarian referee didn’t whistle penalty, again the victory of pragmatism.
Since 1994 Barcelona and la Roja has been working with the same criteria each, and they have reached the honour to be one off the best sides of football history.
Let’s see what happens next week. But we have already won Bayern Munich had Louis Van Gaal as a coach and now is coming Guardiola, as everybody knows Barça is more than a club.
Gosh I remember Barcelona losing home and away to Dundee United many years ago. Now then you really did have problems. I think considering how difficult a tournament the Champions League is, there will never be another team that dominates it the way Real Madrid did in the 50s and 60s; it will now forever be a round robin. I think what Barca need is a good manager who’s philosophy is the same as the club’s. Would Arsene Wenger be such a bad call? It’s certainly not easy finding available managers of the standard needed. I wouldn’t be too despondant. There’s still a core very good team there .
Just for remember
Champions league fcbarcelona has won
Football 4
Basketball 2
Handball 8
Roller hockey 19
Percentage of fcb supporters in PBLondon depending of origin (more than 100 people)
75% are not Catalan born.
Neutral fans were probably hoping for a Bayern v Barcelona final, promising a feast of football between arguably the continent’s top two teams of the moment.
Curiously inept performance from the Barca head coach. First he plays Messi in a nothing league game when they were already champions, when he knew Messi had a hamstring problem and lo, he can’t play in the crucial champions league tie. Had he already conceded defeat? Then we get a dose of predictable Barca tactics of trying to pick a way though central defence which Bayern were expecting and thoroughly prepared for, while Bayern played havoc with its quick wingmen. And what did we get? The two most talented Barca midfielders (Iniesta and Xavi) replaced by two similar but less talented midfielders and no change of tactics. As a result the whole thing was a walk in the park for Bayern who never needed to get out of cruise. This was all so bizarre that it makes you wonder whether there was match fixing involved, however unlikely. If Barca had not already won the Spanish league I would have thought that this catalogue of incompetence would end in the dismissal of the head coach.