How to deserve to lose

By: Isaiah | January 10th, 2008

Purely hypothetically let’s say you’re the manager of a famous club and your team is drawing 1-1 away during the first leg of a cup tie. Naturally you have several options open to you because, as has been previously stated, your club is famous and therefore has several world-class players on the bench. Just a couple of the options you have include:

1. Removing the least productive member of the team from the field and replacing him with a quality sub.
2. Leaving the least productive member of the team on the field, but changing his location.
3. Curling up into a ball, sucking your thumb, and hoping all goes well.

If you chose Option 3, you’re Frank Rijkaard. And you acted like an idiot during Wednesday’s 1-1 draw at Sevilla. There is nothing, on the surface, embarrassing or negative about a 1-1 draw at the Sanchez Pizjuan, but there is something pretty unforgivable about squandering your chances to enter the return leg with a lead.

Here is a list of players that should have been substituted during the second half of the game:
Gio Dos Santos, Xavi, Edmilson.

Only one of those players (Edmilson) was actually subbed before the 85th minute. I would have taken him out in the 65th or 70th minute — in all fairness probably replacing him with Thuram — because he is not fully match fit yet and with such a loaded schedule ahead, some amount of consideration must be made to earlier moves. That Edmilson was injured is not Rijkaard’s fault, of course, but it is an unfortunate consequence of that decision. I can understand the desire to utilize Edmilson as much as possible, to keep the Sevilla attack at bay with a strong holding midfielder, but by that time it wasn’t doing much good at all and was, in fact, delaying any and all potential counterattacks.

Another reason for the issues with the counterattacks was the combo of Xavi and Gio Dos Santos combining about as well as I can navigate Tangiers blindfolded. Xavi was the awful, but at least served a defensive purpose; Gio, on the other hand, might as well have been kicking the ball towards Sevilla’s forwards, for all the good his runs, lack of vision, and poor touch did for Barca. While he had his moments (could have and probably should have scored his inside-out shot in the first half when it was 0-0), he was mostly crap. I disagree with Ray Hudson’s analysis of Gio (that he had a good game) in that I was just beginning to find myself enjoying his contributions and his ability to provide at least some of the spark lost when Messi went out. This game was a monumental setback if he was intent on winning my heart, which you know he was. Sorry, Gio.

Eto’o was removed from the game and Phil Schoen made the comment that it was about time, that Eto’o had been invisible for much of the game. Sure, that’s true, but only a fool would make that statement as if it was a judgment on that forward’s skills because absolutely no service was provided throughout the game. Eto’o went back on defense more than usual, but was routinely the only player making forward runs, especially when Henry got the ball, was surrounded by 4 players, and had to either pass it backwards or try a hopeful long ball over the top to absolutely no one. Eto’o should be proud of the sweat he worked up running into open space all game, but should be downright infuriated by his teammates and their lack of passion. And what are you saving him for? He’s leaving after this Saturday for up to 9 games. Nine! Who cares how tired he gets for Cameroon, play him for 90 minutes goddammit.

Henry looked pretty good, I will admit. He went back on defense and saved a probable goal by sliding in and then taking the ball out to midfield, where he was promptly besieged thanks to the fact that Gio was horribly out of position (gasp!), Edmilson was somewhere near Valdes, and Iniesta was ghosting into obscurity somewhere near Dani Alves.

The man of the match was, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind, Rafael Marquez. He’s played brilliantly lately and I’m happy to see him back at his best. He covered for everyone, rather than the other way around, and I’m glad he did it. Sevilla shouted for a few penalties, but they were only attempts to sucker the ref into it (in fact, Sevilla dove quite a bit throughout the game and I didn’t notice a single Barca dive, though Gio probably embellished a few times).

The ref, of course, was shit. He called a handball on Marquez (and carded him) that was clearly not a handball, only minutes after Dragutinovic got a very undeserved yellow for the same action. What a joke. He called a foul on Gio after Crespo basically punched Gio in the mouth twice — and no doubt the list goes on and on if you’re a Sevillista. That’s all I could remember.

All in all, my thoughts are that if your team is playing one-touch balls to the opposition for 70 minutes, it’s time to change. Rijkaard apparently has no trigger finger left. He put Bojan on for the last 60 seconds of the game, as if it was the kid’s first runout with the squad. What jackassery, really. I will not line up to call for Rijkaard’s head until after the Murcia game, when I’ve had a chance to see if he’s regained any of his willingness to take risks with his players, or at least not overexert them. Maybe he’s trying to find a way to excuse himself from having to make squad decisions when Deco and Ronnie come back from injury…after all, if Gio is too tired to play, that’s the perfect time to drop in Ronaldinho…”Iniesta can’t play, he needs a break; Deco will have to start…blah blah blah.” Can’t you just see it?

I want to see beautiful, attack-minded soccer where the manager is willing to look for the knockout rather than fret on the sidelines about damage control. And stop playing goddamned English-style long ball, please. We’re Barca, not a team with tall strikers you aim for from 65 yards, so stop playing like it.

That rant was a long time coming…And it felt good.