Review: Chivas 1 – 1 Barça, AKA Holy Canteranos, Batman!

By: Isaiah | August 9th, 2009

Last night Chivas (Guadalajara) drew with Barcelona in the final match of FCB’s American tour. As I write this, the team is already back in Barcelona, probably not resting on laurels, especially not one Tall Ass Swede (TAS). There are a lot of things to take from this particular tour, most of which are positive.

First, the game itself, then the tour as a whole.

Chivas began brightly, laying siege to us, in a sense, but never really gaining possession. Their game plan was to harry, rather than dispossess, as they parked the bus until halftime. They were effective, for the most part, and only a post, some good goalkeeping, and a couple of poor shots kept Barcelona off the score sheet. Then halftime came around, a mostly new side was rolled out by Guardiola, and Chivas scored on some sloppy defending. Alves turned from goat (har har) to hero as he provided the excellent cross that Bojan tapped in on the far post.

To the individual performances, then. Obviously you’re all waiting for this particular portion of the review, since it’s what has sparked the most debate in the comments. So, then, what did I think of Thierry Henry’s performance? Well, that’s actually a complex question. My initial reaction, recorded for all posterity (or until the server fails), was that Thierry Henry played an absolutely horrendous, lazy game. I wrote repeatedly that he was lazy, that he wasn’t going at Chivas at more than half-speed, that he wasn’t trying hard enough. At halftime I was fed up with him and his lack of integration in the offensive flow, such that it was. I was happy with Messi’s involvement, with Xavi’s control of the game, and I was so-so on Pedro!’s success (he was warming up by halftime and only got better from there). Henry, then, stood out as poor.

Henry, of course, was the one who had our best chances to score, hitting the post once after bursting through the center as well as forcing Michel to make a very quick, diving save to his right towards the end of the first half. He also attempted to lob the keeper from near the halfway line. Our scoring chances otherwise fell to, well, I said chances, but I guess I should have said “chance” in the singular since there was just one, really, and it was for Pedro!, whose shot went directly to the keeper. So Henry, who was lazy and boring, accounted for 75% of our offensive output in the first half. Messi, whose praises were sung, didn’t provide any. He did try a chilena at one point, but was adjudged offside.

It’s interesting to look at what Henry’s role in the match was. I think it was, as Hector pointed out, Henry’s role was probably to make an appearance and appease the fans while not getting injured. Also, it’s important to put him out there in order to integrate not Henry, but rather Maxwell since most of the times Maxwell will play, he’ll be paired on the left with Henry. Was it a case where Maxwell and Keita weren’t giving Henry enough outlets for his moves or was Henry isolating himself by not moving enough to get into the right position to allow Keita and Maxwell to provide him with outlets? I personally believe that it’s a combination of both, that Henry was a bit injured and so wasn’t going to push himself, but knew what he needed to do to help Maxwell become more accustomed to his role. So, all-in-all, I think was too harsh on Henry in the immediate comments because 1) he was probably playing through pain, 2) he and Maxwell haven’t totally meshed as a unit on the left, meaning there was miscommunication and problems with interchanges, 3) compared to the Messi-Alves-Xavi combination passing on the right side, no one would have looked good; and 4) it’s a freakin’ friendly, people!. Guardiola was probably experimenting with different tactical nuances and didn’t really care if we put away 4 goals or not, just that we got a good workout for the squad, ironed out some issues, and got time on the field for the new members of the squad. Mission accomplished.

As I have maintained, Henry was an essential part of our Triple-winning season. Anyone who denies that is denying the actual fact that we won that title. I believe that. Maybe we could have been better with someone like Ribery or whoever as the attacking left winger/striker, but, the fact remains that with Thierry Henry we won more than anyone in Spain has ever won before in a single season. Credit where credit is due: Henry is a fantastic player and he scored 26 goals for us last year and he deserves to start for us. Until he shows that he can’t do so on a consistent basis, then he should start. Period.

As for everyone else, Guddy was good in the “Xavi role” and surprised me quite a lot. I was very, very happy with his performance. I was also blown away by Pedro!, JDS, and Fontas. I didn’t get a negative impression of anyone’s skills (Henry I know has the skills and believe he had an explainable and acceptable off game), which I really like. Jeffren showed me that he needs more time on the field against different opponents to really settle in. Muniesa didn’t impress me particularly, but he didn’t detract from my sense that he’ll be Ready next year or, at worst, the year after that. Fontas is, perhaps, Ready now. Maxwell was fantastic on the ball, but he isn’t fully integrated into the passing game yet, as evidenced by his occasional disruption of the passing triangles by running somewhere that would have made a square or some other multi-sided polygon.

We miss Iniesta and Ibra, of course, but what team wouldn’t? We’ll get them back in due course and we’ll smoke some mofos in the process of retaining our title. Yeah, I said it. Our cantera is so full of talent it’s unbelievable. We started 6 canteranos (Valdes, Pique, Muniesa, Xavi, Messi, Pedro!) and then in the second half introduced 6 more (Puyol, Fontas, Busi, JDS, Jeffren, Bojan). That’s super exciting because all of the young ones have incredible potential and the veteran ones are all world-class (even Valdes; put him in any other country than Spain and he’s an automatic member of the national team). Add Iniesta to the mix and we could have a starting lineup of: Valdes, Puyol, Pique, Muniesa, Busi, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro!, Bojan, Messi with second half subs of Jeffren, JDS, and Fontas. Uh, yeah, that’s sweet. Feel free to compare that to Real Madrid’s starting lineup and eventual subs from the DC United game today (2 canterano starters in Casillas and Granero and 4 canterano subs in Raul, Guti, Miguel Torres, and Negredo). I like this disparity. And I like that we’re the team to beat despite their 300m+ investment simply because we’re producing super high-quality players from a young age and not having to buy them all. Enjoy the debt FloPer has saddled you with for the next 10 years. It’ll never come to bite you in the ass, will it?

So our American tour is over and we’re resting up for our monumental season, which begins in earnest August 16 against Athletic Bilbao in the SuperCopa de España. Hells to the yes I’m excited for official competition, the return of Iniesta, and the first start for Ibrahimovic. It’s going to be a glorious year and a glorious decade if the canteranos have anything to say about it (and they will).