A few tidbits and oh yeah, Messi is out

By: Isaiah | March 6th, 2008

First, foremost, top of the list is Lionel Messi’s injury. It’s a hamstring injury that will keep him out for six weeks. Yes, we’re through to the quarterfinals of the Champions League (hip! hip!) thanks to a 1-0 win over Celtic (hooray!), but we had to witness Messi in tears over an injury that is both identical to the previous injury that kept him out of the Champions League final when we won it all and will keep him out of several crucial matches in the coming weeks. His tears alone were enough to break your heart, if you have one at all. There are always injuries, and treating them with stoicism is quite a heralded trait here in the US, but I’ve always found the passion with which athletes approach their respective sports can be extraordinarily endearing at times, not the least of which is when they realize that they are going to be sidelined for an extended period of time. Messi is twenty years old and he does what he loves to do for a living. It’s obvious, both from his joy and the crushed look on his face, that he adores the beautiful game, that he lives and breathes it far more than probably anyone who reads this blog does (certainly more than I do). And it is tragic in many ways to watch that kind of love and joy be reigned in by injuries, by something out of a player’s control.

I don’t want to go too overboard, but it is, in a sense, heartbreaking to watch that happen. Imagine yourself in that situation, with that kind of pressure, that kind of joy and desire, that kind of love for what you do — and to have it taken away from you at the moment you were at your very best. It’s not the most important thing in the world, of course, but it sucks to have your dreams crushed.

The game itself was boring. It started off so brightly and I thought it would end 3-0 and it should have. However, once we were a goal up, what was the point of playing hard? While I wanted Barca to play hard for 90 minutes, I also knew that it would be foolish to expend gargantuan amounts of energy to defeat an already defeated opponent. Gordon Strachan had the worst tactics imaginable, I thought. While it would risk being crushed on a counterattack, when it became clear his tactic of sit and defend would not bring him goals, he should have moved in two strikers a wee bit earlier than he did. That he didn’t benefited Barcelona’s pass-and-move, pass-and-move style perfectly. If you want Nakamura defending for 88 minutes, fine. But don’t expect to win that way. Venegoor of Hesselink received something like one ball the whole game because there was no service. That’s due in part to Barca’s midfield, of course, but mostly it was due to Celtic’s positioning, which put them at the edge of their box every time they gained possession, forcing them to move the whole length of the field with less talented players. That’s untenable. Maybe you don’t want to be embarrassed by Barcelona, sure, but I think it’s more embarrassing to refuse to play rather than going for it being beaten 3-0.

Ronaldinho had a good game, but there just isn’t any chemistry between himself, Henry, and Eto’o. Has that trio ever scored while on the field together? I bet they have, but I can’t remember one…The point is, something has to change now that Messi is out. We can’t keep the status quo of a 4-3-3 and expect to win. Bojan is a fantastic option up front, but as faithful reader ballbeav pointed out in the comments of the Celtic preview, we can’t put the responsibility of winning cups and leagues on the shoulders of 17- and 18-year olds. I agree completely with that sentiment. Bojan and Gio should still be used as subs, rather than starters; with that in mind, here’s my suggestion for a standard lineup in the sans-Messi era:

Valdes, Zambrotta, Puyol, Milito, Abidal, Toure, Xavi, Iniesta, Deco, Ronaldinho, Eto’o

This is, in essence, the offensive unit that won us the CL and league titles in 2005-06. What I really like about this lineup is its extreme flexibility, depending on who needs to come out. As a 4-3-1-2 or a 4-3-2-1 (depending on where you place Ronnie), I think it allows you to swap straight into a 4-3-3 by replacing Xavi, Deco, or Iniesta with Henry or Bojan or to swap forwards in and out at will. The main drawback I see is that there are few to no midfield subs available for a direct swap with any of the mighty mites. Because of that, I doubt Rijkaard will employ this system, especially since he seems to have such faith in Henry. I don’t have that faith, but do like his potential as a game-changing substitute. The reason for this is that Henry is quite often more affective when he’s unsettled and is forced to carve his own path than when he gets the start and is allowed to ease into invisibility as he so often does. He works better with Bojan than any other striker, but it’s for precisely that reason that he should be on the bench: he needs to work with Eto’o. Samu is our goal-scorer, our best pure striker, and he needs to the ball at his feet with space, something that Deco can provide better than Henry. With Iniesta and Xavi spreading a bit wider to cover the absences of Messi and Ronaldinho (the latter being further up field than normal due to the formation), I think it allows us the same amount of ball control, but more verticality. Without Messi’s runs, we have to be able to break open defenses with longer, more incisive passing. [Just for the sake of bringing it up so no one can say I didn't think about it, a 4-4-2 diamond is not necessarily a bad idea, it's just that it's essentially the same as a 4-1-2-1-2 or 4-3-1-2 put in a slightly different way. The tactics are the same, essentially. One thing I'm not advocating is a flat 4-4-2 because that just doesn't make any damned sense for Barca if we want Toure to start and goddammit I want Toure to start.]

I don’t doubt that Rijkaard will prefer to start Henry up front with Ronnie and Eto’o this weekend against Villarreal, but that is, again, a mistake in my opinion. On paper that’s a brilliant front-line pairing, but as I’ve been saying for a while, Henry and Ronaldinho do not play well together thanks to their tactical similarities. They both play left-sided roles, but there’s only one left side in this game so there’s a lot of over-crowding in that region. Henry needs to either play in the middle or sit. Period. There are too many halves spent wasted with anonymous strikers already — we don’t need more.

Several commenters here have espoused the view that Sylvinho and Abidal are interchangeable as left-backs. I couldn’t disagree more. While Sylvinho has more assists on the year and several people, including Ray Hudson, have suggested that Abidal would better left out of the starting lineup, I can’t help but think that his crosses are better and more incisive than Sylvinho’s. In fact, it’s almost as if he’s so much better than Sylvinho in the attacking third that the rest of the team hasn’t caught up to him yet. His crosses are, to be honest, destined for people who are willing to head the ball in, but that he provided too good of service being held against him is just silly. Not only is Abidal better defensively by far, he provides better offensive service, in my opinion. Yes, Sylvinho’s crosses are latched on to by Xavi more regularly than Abidal’s, but that is just like saying I’m a better basketball player than Michael Jordan because one time I made a three-pointer without looking and MJ only shot something like 45% lifetime from three. I’m 100% with my eyes closed, dammit! I’m better! See? That’s just ridiculous. First of all I can’t dunk and secondly, Abidal is better than Sylvinho. End of story thanks for coming hope you enjoyed the can of whoopass I just handed your argument. That’s how you act like a leader, people! I’m a decider, not a sheep!

[I've got iTunes set to random and Mr. T Experience just came on, so I apologize in advance if the rest of this post is tinged with poppy teenage angst. It just takes me back middle school and high school when names like Beatnik Termites and Groovie Ghoulies were constantly coming out of my mouth. Anyone know what the hell I'm talking about?]

Okay, so this won’t be angsty, I don’t think: Real Madrid is out of the CL. I didn’t get to see the game, but it seemed a slightly topsy-turvy affair. Several chances went begging for each side before it was finally put away late, late by Vucinic’s header. Pretty cool stuff, or so I read. As a Barca fan, I have to rejoice in Madrid’s downfall, in their failure, yet again, to get that coveted 10th European Cup. It does open up the doors for us to win the triple in a way that would gut any RM fan, something I’m not ashamed to say I’d love because of the way Real celebrated their league “title” last year. Just desserts, my friends. Before we get to that, of course, we have a long, long way to go. And that brings up the question of whether such an “early” exit for the CL is going to help Real focus on the league all the more.

It’s impossible to say, of course, but I’ve always felt that runs of form were not predicated on rest or lack of other competitions. In fact, I think, if anything, it’s the reverse. Barca won the league and CL titles by just being in a great run of form for a while in 05-06. It’s rare, I think, that any team would win the CL and not their domestic league, which suggests that Real are going to be hard-pressed to win the league while we could, inshala, win it all three times over. Oh the glory, oh the gushing that would bring from this soapbox atop which I stand. Lordy that would just be the bee’s knees, eh? But somehow I doubt that happens because Messi is out and our team hasn’t quite found its top gear. I think that we should be able to win despite Messi’s absence, but it’s like college basketball: you lose a key player and you’re done just like that. It’s not that you’re not good, but you just don’t have the little extra shove of brilliance that it takes to overcome such incredible odds. So the league is very, very much in doubt for us and I don’t deny that. I have faith in our boys, so long as they go out and play wonderful football. Madrid may win, but they will have to do so by playing boring, shitty football that is absolutely no fun to watch. And they’ll have to do it with me frowning upon them from my blogging throne/high-chair. We’ll see if Schuster can handle such embarrassment…

Okay, enough for today. What are your thoughts on all this?