Of Defenders, Celebrations and Mental Resilience

After a long-ish time, Barca get an entire week to do whatever it is that they do in training sessions without a mid-week game interruption. According to MD, this is the first week without a midweek game since start of the season, and if everything goes as planned in Champions League, likely the last till end of Hlebruary. Which does make it sound a rare event, you know, like a solar eclipse. Tito Vilanova gets to go off and eat paella and visit the cinema theater without trying to figure out a formation where Barca can play without any defenders.

So fellas, you couldn't possibly save us all a headache and make it 100% possession, could you?

In a team where almost everyone gets called up for international games except Pinto who spends the spare time designing very cool Pinto glasses or crazy music videos (that you can find a link to on Messi’s FB account if you really want to), it’s not really a mystery as to why the Football Gods aren’t letting up on the injury curse. It’s like a small math riddle – at our current rate of losing players to injuries and current average recovery time, how long before we run out of first team players? But let’s look at the positives, and yes, there are many. It’s not all just doom and gloom and Cesc’s finishing, there’s also the bright side (no, we are not just talking about Barca away kit). And we’ll try and focus on that for the rest of this post.

(1) We have five wins out of five in La Liga so far, just a (possibly very tough) win away from a record equaling six wins in a row start. Sure there are still a lot of points left to play and we’ll refrain from mentioning any lead at this stage. After all, we’ve all heard the story of the tortoise and the fatheaded hare. But still,  that is fifteen points out of a possible fifteen, and it’s a good start.

(2) Tito can celebrate! What? All right, might not be a positive, but that GIF just had to be included.

(via @emenderk)

(3) The team is showing a lot of mental resilience or whatever it is that they need to show to make comebacks. ”The fightback proves that the team is eager to win” said Tito of a comeback win. Well, since then the team has been so eager to prove they are eager to win that we wish they’d tone it down a little and take the easy scenic route once in a while instead of it all being heart-stopping cliff-hangers. But still, a win is a win is a win. Or something like that.

(4) Our defenders are scoring goals. Adriano has scored twice already. Dani did too, but it was at the wrong end. And Masche did as well, but again it was at the wrong end. In fact, once Tito has a talk with them and explains which end is what, it’s no doubt a case of goals galore (and at the right end too)!

When all else fails, there's always Adriano Goal.

(5) Yet another Song to center-back experiment commences. We still think Tito should try JDS there after Pep’s failed RB experiment, but with a back-line of  Alves-Pique-Song-Alba what’s to worry? Except for the possibility of Xavi turning around to pass a ball and finding a gaping vaccuum where his defenders ought to be, because they’re out upfront vying with Messi and Villa.

(6) Talking of which, we have Xavi. As we all know, he can complete passes while simultaneously arguing with a referee to get a yellow card and uphold footballing justice  all at the same time. “Super Xavi” screamed Sport’s cover page a few days back, and they weren’t even kidding.

(7) We have a very optimistic official website. Well, not only that, but they have statistical facts to prove that we cope very well without Puyol and Pique apparently.

Not to worry, we can always play Pedro and Busi at CB.

(8) We have it from very reliable inside sources that Adriano is working on a new goal celebration. Which will be a welcome change from this. He can always ask Dani Alves for suggestions, as Pedro once did.

What do I do now?!

We would like to leave you with this 2 minute video of Barca players climbing into a bus. You are welcome of course.

Disclaimer: Filed under “nonsense”. Apologies in advance for any potential loss of insight.

Some Related Barcelona Posts:

• La Liga preview: FC Barcelona vs Granada CF: Defenders gone M.I.A.
• Seven Predictions for the Clasico

Category: Barcelona, Nonsense, Team News