Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Guardiola

By: Isaiah | March 2nd, 2009

Tragedy in Madrid! Fire Valdes, kick out Guardiola, bring in someone who can actually win some matches! Alves should learn to play defense! Eto’o should learn to score!

Calm down. Let’s think about this. We lost to Atletico Madrid who are the most underachieving side in the league, even now, having beaten us. It’s not as if we lost to a team of semi-pro players or a Segunda B side. We lost to a team that’s competing in the Champions League while we visited their stadium. We were scored on by Kun Aguero and Diego Forlan, not some peg-legged pirates with eye patches and 2D vision. What?

Have we had a frustrating 2 weeks? Yes, we have. But we’re still the best team on the planet and we’re still capable of beating anyone. Do we have 46 squad players like ManU (or whatever the exact number is)? No, we don’t, because we play in a league that doesn’t allow that. So we don’t. We have limited resources compared to some of the EPL teams, but we’re still a huge club and we still command respect everywhere we travel. And for good reason: Puyol, Marquez, Alves, The Yaya, Xavi, Henry, Messi, Eto’o. And that’s just part of who we started yesterday.

But Atleti started a midfield and forward line of: Assunçao, Simão, Maxi, Forlan, and Aguero. And to think, we’re complaining about losing to them? If Atleti are the perennial choke artists of La Liga, it’s only notable because they’re so good that they shouldn’t choke. All of those players are regular starters on the international level. So let that one go. Let’s move on to the Copa match on Wednesday and let’s win that one. It will help our confidence and it will help our team.

The thing is, Guardiola hasn’t been able to replicate the first half goal haul, really, because he’s learning his trade in a lot of ways. The season is incredibly long and he’s realizing this. He hasn’t made the same mistake twice, to be honest, so he’s obviously capable of learning. Not on that, but in our most dire moments, in the moments where our team is disastrously aiming towards defeat, we still play the prettiest football on the planet. We still stick to our 4-3-3 guns of beauty and that’s not only admirable, it’s as it should be. We don’t have to play dirty, ugly soccer to win. We can play hard and well and make it look good while we do it. If we lose a few games here and there, so be it. But I guarantee that this is the end of the dip in form. We happened to meet a good team on a good day for their offense — what is one really to do about that?

Real Madrid is closing the gap, yes, but as I said before, it is up to us, not them. If they garner 42 more points this half of the season, that is their doing. The only way we can change that is by beating them at the Bernabeu and, as I said earlier, we can beat anyone. Come out to play, boys, and see what happens to you.

We are 4 points up on RM in the first week in March. Is that a problem? Is it bad that we are winning by more than a full match with 13 games remaining? We have earned 60 points in 25 games. Is that bad? It’s taken a 9-match winning streak by RM (during which they never once played us) to get 4 points back of us. I believe in this Barça team and I believe in Guardiola.

Are there negatives on our team? Of course. It’s not that we’re not deep enough, it’s that our depth has not been able to come through for us in any real way. Perhaps that is their fault, perhaps Guardiola’s. I tend to think it’s both, but we, as fans, are not privy to the training, to the practices where people show their worth and earn starting spots. I called for Bojan to sub on against Atleti, but Guardiola obviously had other plans. Why not Busi for Guddy? Or even Bojan for Guddy if you want to keep your 3 starting strikers on the field? I’m sure there were tactical considerations that I missed.

Another negative: two of their goals were awkward bounces that didn’t go our way. Unlucky, yes, but our midfield has not been the same for a few weeks and has allowed those bounces to reach the back line in massive numbers. Instead of landing at the foot of a Barcelona player, loose balls seem to be falling to other teams, which is something we need to remedy by increasing our rotation and increasing our reliance on substitutions. Which brings me to the dreaded subject of Hleb.

If we could rely on someone who wasn’t named Xavi to carry a little bit of the creative weight in our midfield, we wouldn’t be so obviously short-handed when injuries happen (and they do happen). If we can get Iniesta back for the Athletic and Lyon games, we’re money in the bank to progress to the final of the Copa and the quarters of the CL. Both teams have to score against us to advance and I like our chances against a desperate side pushing forward. And then we’ll be back on course, so to speak. It’s just that Hleb doesn’t seem to 1) understand the system in which he’s playing or 2) have the desire to learn it. Maybe I’m reading too much into his craptacular few months — as Kevin rightly points out, he was starting to integrate better into the side when he was injured, but that injury was months ago — or maybe I’m not reading enough into it. Should we sell him? Maybe as part of a deal for Ribery, but otherwise, no, we need the depth and perhaps he can grow into the system like some claim Abidal has. [What I mean by that is merely that some, for whatever reason, didn't see Abidal as a solid member of last year's squad. I remember him roaming a bit too, but he was always physically there, always giving it up for the team and, at times, I do not see Hleb doing either of those. /end Hleb rant]

So worry not, despite our affinity for stuttering these days, we’ll be back, if probably never in the way that we saw for the first 5 months. Guardiola needs a bit of time to get things settled (remember Numancia? Racing? And then…KAPOW)! We’ll see a different Barcelona soon — probably when we play Mallorca and the boys get some much-needed rest. Bojan should be a spark plug out there and perhaps Hleb will redeem himself as a winger or creative midfielder. Guddy should see action on Wednesday as well and, perhaps, Pedro! will also get onto the field.