La Liga Review: Villarreal 0, FC Barcelona 0, Or, Like Pesticide to Bandwagon Fans.

Let’s get the important bit out of the way first: Barça are now 7 points behind Real Madrid in La Liga race, our away form is disastrous and it looks like the title has all but slipped through our fingers. If you’re a madridista, Gunner, perico, romanista (still hurt for being saddled with Bojan), fan from any other team who’s come to laugh at our misfortune, or -Football Gods forbid- a fair-weather Barça fan, you can proceed straight to the comment section for your gloating.

Thank you.

They told me I couldn't keep winning La Liga forever and ever... I'll show them!

Still with us, then? Good, you’re made of sterner stuff than many.

Boy, was this a crap match or what? I’m not going to say that it’s the worst match I’ve seen Pep’s Barça play, but it was certainly pretty awful. Pep played VV, Alves, Piqué, Puyol, Abidal, Mascherano, Xavi, Busquets, Messi, Cesc and Adriano. Considering that our team squad consists of 15 players right now (including the hastily-recruited Cuenca and Alexis on painkillers for his shoulder), it’s not a bad line-up. Sure, Thiago’s absence was somewhat baffling, but Busquets has played in the advanced midfielder position before and done well, so it wasn’t as bad as it looked. And as for the forward line… well, we’re lucky if we can field anyone there, these days.

It was, then, a bit surprising when Pep started playing a 3-4-3, with Alves on the wing:

—————–VV—————-
—Puyol——Piqué———Abidal–
———–Mascherano————-
—-Busquets———Xavi———
————–Cesc——————
—-Alves——-Messi——-Adriano—

That’s what it should’ve looked like, at least. But Masche had to fold into the defence often to babysit Piqué, Alves flew up and down the wing -often, with no discernible reason- like a hummingbird on crack, and with Cesc and Adriano playing hide-and-seek, Messi drifted around the right wing alone, like the main character of a postmodernist novel looking for a connection with humanity.

You’ll shrewdly mention that I didn’t mention our midfield. But that’s because it didn’t really exist! It was a trick: Busi was putting out fires all over the pitch, while Xavi had joined Cesc and Adriano in non-existence.

Pictured, 5 or 6 guys who should've started this match. (hint: Pinto is not one of them)

Pep did try to fix things. He moved Piqué to RB and Puyol to CB for a bit, for all the good it did us. Five minutes later, he realised there was no point, and swapped things back again. He gestured at Alves and Adriano. He sat sullenly on the bench and wished for Tito Vilanova’s calming presence.

Barça had a couple of great chances (a Messi over-the-keeper chip that went wide, a Cesc chance he wasted with a too-heavy first touch), but so did Villarreal (a Gonzalo goal disallowed for offside), so there wasn’t much to be proud of at half-time, save that we’d had no injuries yet.

For the second half, there were no subs, but Pep did alter the design:

————-VV—————
Puyol–Piqué–Masche—Abidal
———-Busquets———–
—–Cesc——Xavi———-
Alves——-Messi——-Adriano

This led to… no improvement. The players looked lethargic, imprecise, fuzzy, except for Adriano, who put in some good runs and lobbed in some good crosses, only to find NO ONE on the Villarreal box (which is, I can only imagine, about as frustrating as watching this match was).

PAIN IS IN THE MIND, NOT THE SHOULDER!!!

15 minutes into the second half, Pep had enough: better a forward high on painkillers than Piqué. Alexis came in, all smiles, and Alves drifted back down to RB. But it wasn’t all good news, as Piqué was seen receiving medical treatment on the bench: horrid as his form has been lately, we hope it’s a minor knock, because we’re two injuries away from not being able to field a first team, literally. (notice how I’ve managed the impossible, using the word ‘literally’ correctly!)

But nothing. Even on the good drugs, Alexis wasn’t enough to turn the dreary momentum of the match, so Pep took another desperate gamble (which he should’ve taken oh, about 60 minutes earlier) and brought in Thiago and Tello (20, winger for Barça B, first time playing for Barça in la Liga) for Xavi and Adriano.

And that’s when the match got interesting, with 15 minutes to go. The kids were glad to get a chance, they were somewhat well-rested, they were eager to impress, they were lively. In the five minutes after they came in, Barça had more chances at goal as they’d had in the 80 minutes before that. Gonzalo had to do a red-card-worthy foul on Tello to stop what looked like a surefire run at goal. Diego López finally got some exercise. Cesc hit the crossbar. Messi’s shot was saved and then, Cesc, unexplainably, skied the rebound.

I think I can! I think I can! I think I can! (if Gonzalo stops fouling me)

Those 15 minutes of good football weren’t enough to save us. The final scoreline was a bleak 0-0 and Barça dropped two more points in away matches (so far this season, Barça has lost 13 points away from home, compared to the whole of last season, when we dropped 11 -5 of those with the title already won).

Yes, it was a highly disappointing match with some highly disappointing performances by most players. Yes, the tactics were confusing at times. Yes, our away form continues to suck. Yes, the odds of our winning the Liga this season are a tiny, frightened thing.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, time for some quick player ratings!

Valdés: 8. Solid performance, though a misunderstanding with Piqué at some point saw him take an unnecessary risk.
Puyol: 6. Not bad, with some good last-ditch tackles here and there, but he was outpaced often and tried too hard to be everywhere at once.
Piqué: 4. On his 100th Liga match with Barça, Piqué continued to disappoint, with terrible decision-making and poor positioning.
Abidal: 8. Praise the Football Gods that King Abi is with us, for without him our fate would be most cruel indeed.
Mascherano: 8,5. Both in his long-forgotten DM position and as CB, El Jefecito was great, doing his work and bailing out his teammates.
Busquets: 7,5. He did well enough, but there wasn’t time for him to settle down into any of his jobs as he tried to patch problems here and there.
Xavi: 5. Lost. Gone. Where was he? Save for a good pass here and there, this wasn’t the Xavi we know.
Cesc: 4. As lost and gone as Xavi, but he was also responsible for a terrible miss that could’ve given us the match.
Alves: 6. He seemed confused: was he a RB, a winger, should he try to help out the midfield? He couldn’t seem to pick Messi out of a line-up, either.
Messi: 5. He had two or three sparks of genius (a shot went wide, Cesc couldn’t capitalise on his pass, etc…) but most of the time he just stood in No Man’s Land between the right wing and the midfield, apparently waiting for something.
Adriano: 7. He took about 40 minutes to appear, but once he did, he was lively and -one can only imagine- endlessly frustrated with his teammates.
Alexis (in for Piqué): 7,5. Kudos to the kid for coming in with his shoulder still hurt, like a trooper; he did try, but his teammates weren’t helping any.
Tello (in for Adriano): 9. Take a young kid, make him have his Liga debut in an away ground, in a leaden match, with zombified teammates. Watch him shine and have a great opportunity that could’ve saved the match but for a bad foul.
Thiago (in for Xavi): 8. He should’ve played from the start, and his too-serious face showed that he knew it.

At least Piqué had a worse game than I did... didn't he?

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. I guess you’re feeling pretty down now, though, aren’t you? Like the sun has lost its shine like Barça has lost their chance at La Liga? Never fear. I thrive in adversity. Nitpicky and pessimistic when we’re winning and the team has no opposition, I turn impossibly idealistic when we’re in dire straits.

What follows is the remix from the motivational speech I gave on Twitter, in increasingly epic 140-character bursts, after the match was over and while everyone else was mourning this season.

Barça are now 7 points behind RM in La Liga race; the title it’s not lost, though it’s going to be an uphill struggle… but I will stop believing that this team can win La Liga when it’s technically and mathematically impossible that they do so (everyone who wants to jump from the bandwagon early is welcome to it, of course). Yes, it is unlikely that Real Madrid will drop 7 points. But it’s possible. Would you really give up now? At least wait until May… after all, the Football Gods owe us a small miracle or two for The Hamstring Curse.
To everyone saying it’s over… we understand your pessimism, but it’s really unbecoming of a Barça fan to give up so easily. To everyone saying we should just focus on the Champions League (and the Copa del Rey)… it’s not going to happen. Do you really think Pep is going to go and say, “Well, guys, Liga’s as good as lost, don’t bother with it anymore”? Pep and this team are going to fight until the end in every single competition. That’s what they do. That’s how they’ve brought us here. We didn’t win the Triplete, or all these Ligas, by careful, pragmatic resource management. We did it with hard work against huge odds.
So what if we only have 15 fit players? What if they’re tired, off their game and have terrible hair? They are fighters and they won’t give up. And, as fans, we can’t give up either. This team needs us more now than they did when they were winning everything.
If you really believe this team has lost its hunger, that Pep’s tactics are a bust, that we won’t win anything… walk away now. Yes, yesterday’s performance was very poor, and our away form has been mediocre all season. We’ve played risky tactics. Players are tired. But this team and these players and this coach are still the best in the world. And they can do anything.
To those bandwagon fans who are looking for an excuse to jump ship: go away, we won’t miss you. To those fans who still believe: hang in there, this team will never fail to make us proud! Som-hi Barça!!!
Like VV said after the match, “Let no one doubt it! We’re going to fight until the very end! We won’t give up. Today more than ever, Força Barça!”

Remember… win, lose or play for a boring draw that imperils our Liga season… VISCA EL BARÇA!

Some Related Barcelona Posts:

• Bow to Pep: FC Barcelona 5, Villarreal 0 – Extended Match Highlights and Commentary
• La Liga Review: Málaga 1, FC Barcelona 3, Or, Child’s Play

Category: Barcelona, La Liga, Review, State of the Liga, Thoughts