Preseason: Chivas – Barça, Saturday 11pmEST, FSC and TeleFutura

By: Isaiah | August 7th, 2009

We’re back to non-HD, sadly, meaning we’re going to have squint a bit (even on the bigass TVs) to see if it’s Pique, Muniesa, or Fontas out there. Puyol, at least, is always identifiable. It’s the final preseason game for Barcelona unless you count the Gamper as preseason — I don’t because it’s after the official start of competition and, really, it’s not so friendly — so we might just see a real lineup for the first time. Ibrahimovic won’t be playing, of course, and I don’t think Iniesta or Valdes will be either, though there’s a chance Iniesta will make it. There isn’t, of course, much word on what’s going to happen, but it’s a preseason friendly, so whatever.

Chivas is our stiffest competition yet (no offense, El Bex and Landycakes), so it’ll be interesting how we handle it. Guardiola might just go ahead and throw out a starting 11, just to get them some reps together and, perhaps, to give Bojan a nice little boost of confidence by playing him. Last year we blew them out of the water, but Bojan didn’t happen to score (and Hleb did!), so we’ll have to try and change that.

A few thoughts about Bojan: kid is 18, about to turn 19, and he’s learning from the best in the world. Yes, he can be a bit slow to react, to make decisions, but he’s learning his craft rather than forcing his craft. I like that. When he starts to force the issue, you can see it, and he gets appreciably worse. Against Seattle he was making the right runs, but didn’t have the proper control to go along with that. I lamented in the match comments that he wasn’t quick enough with his actions after he received the ball, but at least he was receiving the ball in dangerous positions Compare this to what Guddy did, which was to maintain good control after he received the ball, but was routinely receiving the ball in awkward positions*. We can’t have it both ways. Either we accept that Bojan is making the right runs and just needs to work on his touch and shooting or we should say that Gudjohnsen had a great game because he did everything Bojan couldn’t do.

Remember that Bojan also had the luxury of Xavi and Messi feeding him slick passes (to a lesser extent Henry), but Iniesta wasn’t out there (instead it was VicSan, who we’ve collective agreed was, uh, not so great) and neither was Keita or The Yaya. If you add those pieces to the puzzle, Bojan might be able to make a lot more advantage of the situations offered him on his cutting runs, which are still very well done. He’s become, in a lot of ways, an amalgamation of Eto’o, Henry, and Messi, with characteristics from all of them. That necessitates a longer “incubation period” than some out-and-out strikers (Pippo Inzaghi for instance, who was, um, 18 when he made is professional debut). It shouldn’t be forgotten that The Kid put the ball in the back of the net more times than anyone in cantera history, though I do understand that this does not a successful career make. We need to give him time and support as well as playing time. I’m not opposed to loaning him out in principle, but I do think that it would sever his link with the club and he would, in the end, move on. That may or may not be for the best, but for now I think he’s integral to our future plans.

Let’s hope the young guns have more stellar games, but don’t forget that this isn’t just their trial periods, but also Guardiola’s tactical experimentation phase. So if a player looks like he’s being played in an unknown position, perhaps he actually is doing something different from what he’s accustomed to. This time around, let’s keep a special eye on Bojan’s runs as well as his finishing, passing, and general football chicanery.

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*Was Guddy’s role part of Guardiola’s master plan to involve Ibrahimovic? We know that Ibra can control the ball with his back to goal, so is the team practicing with a big, hulking striker who can play the possession game when need-be and turn and fire when that’s the only option? Imagine if we just saw one tactical wrinkle in Guardiola’s playbook? For 15 minutes in a game, Ibra can play that role, then, when the defense is properly adjusted to stop that move, he witches out to the wing and Messi becomes a false 9. Or Henry. Or we throw Krkic in alongside those 3…the tactical possibilities are fairly endless, of course, but isn’t great to think that maybe Guardiola is already out-foxing us? It’s only preseason and he’s crushing us in this game of “What Will Pep Do?” (WWPD).