Deco on his way out?

By: Isaiah | June 21st, 2007

According to Sport, the Barcelona-based and -biased rag, Deco’s name is part of the list Laporta gave as being, basically, expendable. Now this is sort of insane, in a lot of ways. Most fans will jump up and scream that Laporta is a moron or much worse (and I’m certainly usually one of them because, well, very few club presidents understand what they’re doing because they’re business men rather than lifelong sporting directors), but there is at least a modicum of sense to this.

If the team is looking to move more towards a 4-4-2, they have to be willing to give up one of their midfield gems. It’s either Deco, Ronaldinho, or Messi. They play a pivoting midfield with 1 pure striker (if that) and with Iniesta securing balls in the middle and a DM holding down the fort at the center line, there’s no one else to choose but Deco as the odd man out. Sure, I don’t like the idea of moving to a 4-4-2 (either diamond formation with Messi and ‘Dinho on the wings, DM and Iniesta in the middle or potentially with Bojan on a wing and Ronnie playing lynchpin), but if that is the case, Deco certainly would be the one to go and for good reason. It’s just that I don’t want them to play a 4-4-2. I like their system. It’s so enjoyable to watch and I just want it to be reinforced, rather than replaced. And a player like Deco is instrumental to that system — actually, no, Deco is instrumental. Not a player like Deco, but rather Deco period. At some point you have to move on, but why bother until you’ve had a chance to train Bojan and Gio Dos Santos? Why remove a central part of your offense at a time when you just came in 2nd in the league? Eto’o claims that he would play alongside Henry, but that seems doubtful since the egos just seem too large. El Mundo Deportivo suggests it wouldn’t be a 4-4-2, but rather the same system, slightly altered. Here is their graphic of what they believe Eto’o, Henry, Ronnie, and Messi would look like.

As Linda put it in a comment on this blog, what Real Madrid did in a moment of “crisis” was to bring in a boatload of strikers rather than the necessary pieces of the puzzle: defenders and central midfielders. When they finally got around to shoring up the back and middle of the park (Cannavaro, Gago, Diarra, Emerson), they won a title. Or faked winning a title well enough that everyone bought it, anyway. And yeah, I’m bitter.*

If you look at who is leaving Real Madrid this off-season, you can see that they’re finally wising up a little as to what made their team so top-heavy in the first place: players like Cannavaro and older stalwarts like Roberto Carlos who had outlived their usefulness. Now it only remains to be seen if Barcelona has learned any lessons from this “drought” Real Madrid have just emerged from or whether they’re doomed by their own egos to repeat the same mistakes and enter the same “darkness” as Madrid.

And that is what I’m afraid this signals: a changing of the guard at the Camp Nou. From the pragmatism that won us 2 titles and a Champions League to the hubris that can ultimately destroy the very thing it believes it is protecting. I am not an expert on such matters (well, to be honest, I guess I am somewhat of an egotist so perhaps I have better insight into this than I thought), but it seems that turning against all that has allowed you to achieve the success you enjoyed for so long merely because it failed you once is absurd. To bring in another sport, look at the San Antonio Spurs. They’ve won the Championship 4 times in the last 10 years, which, in the NBA, is fantastic. In the years they didn’t win, they didn’t trade away Ginobli or Parker (and here I equate Duncan to Ronaldinho), but rather built up the team around them. They added solid players and kept the core together. And while the core of the team is larger in soccer than in basketball, it’s still the same concept. (If you know your American sports, the Patriots spring to mind as well: they got rid of Deion Branch and while they still did well, receiving-wise, they didn’t have a go-to guy, which cost them in the end against Indy; now they’ve replaced their receiver core and they’re looking like the most dangerous team in the league, which is the entire point of not getting rid of someone fantastic unless you can replace them with someone better).

Beyond that, the Christian Chivu rumors won’t die and the Henry rumors I mentioned earlier are still out there. We’ll see if either ends up coming, but neither should be a priority over a DM to replace Edmilson and Motta. Or at least Motta, who should be the first out of the door. Then I think a left back should be next and a back up right back next. Injuries will ruin your season every time, but that’s no reason to overload the frontline — after all, we’re releasing Saviola, right? Absurd, but fair for him to leave. I would leave if I were him too because he knows full well that he is good enough to make almost any team on earth. That’s not a joke, either. Some look down on his abilities, but he’s proven himself several times over both domestically and internationally and there’s no reason to think that he won’t be successful where he ends up. Also, Sylvinho should go because he doesn’t get the playing time and is, really, past his prime. Gio van Bronckhorst should stay as the backup to whichever better player is brought in to replace him. though having two Giovannis in one squad is a little out of control. Will Guddie go? Only if we find a replacement for him. He’s been decent for us, but that’s about it and we needed someone a little more capable, but he’s growing into the system and he’ll no doubt have more success next year, regardless of whether it’s with Barca or another team. Ezquerro is most likely gone, in the same manner as Maxi Lopez, because, well, he sucks.

No doubt more later, when there is more to report.

*A coworker of mine from Colombia asked me how many points Barcelona lost the league by and I said zero, so he asked me how many fewer goals they’d scored or how many more they’d allowed. When I told him that they were better in both regards, he asked how it was that they didn’t win the league; he was incredulous that La Liga would break from the standards of the rest of the world, which I agree with. It’s not that the majority must be right, but rather that, in this case, they happen to be so. And no, I’m not letting this go.