Red Bulls 2 – 6 Barcelona: Hey, are you guys a real team?

By: Isaiah | August 7th, 2008

My brother is not a very big soccer fan. He watches games when he comes across them, knows a few players, and seems to enjoy the experiences he has going to games with me. But he’s definitely not a rabid fan. He is, however, quite capable of deft, analytical statements that really do reduce the games to their basic points.

For instance, I received this text message from him during last nights game at Giants Stadium: “Red bulls: not as good as barcelona”. Oh so true, mon frere. As silly a statement as that is, it really does sum up what my basic thought on the game. I arrived 15 minutes late thanks to the stupid NJ Transit rerouting they did to keep express buses out of the construction zone or whatever there was near Port Authority and sprinted up to my seat (leaving my dawdling friends behind, of course, cause that’s the type of man I am), arriving just in time to see Xavi delicately place the ball in the back of the net.

And then moments later, before I had even really stop cheering, came the goal by Eto’o. My friends arrived just then and then Marquez piled on the glory/shame in the 23rd. At that point it looked like it was going to be a zillion to nothing and I was happy as a cat in a string factory. Then, of course, came this conversation with my lady:

Her: Who is in goal tonight? Valdes?
Me (happy she can tell the different between baldy and Le French Braid): Yup.
Her: They’re going to have to do something special to get past Valdes…
Me: He’s a better keeper than anyone we’ve got in this country, so yeah, definitely.

The word definitely was cut off by a cross being chipped over, Valdes flobblegobbling the cross, and Seth Stammler nailing it home from the middle of the box. So much for that bit of wisdom on my part. Thanks oodles there, Valdes, for making me look like a total jackass.

After that I, as well as the game, settled down and I was able to begin analyzing what was going on. Eto’o was creating hordes of space in the middle simply by, well, being there. He wasn’t really doing anything, per se, but there he was, almost always without a marker. He made little darting runs and took full advantage of the space Henry and Hleb were creating for him by pushing wide. The Red Bulls never figured out how to contend with the wide play and the quick back passes to Xavi that turned into deadly throughballs seconds later. The central defense was shit. They were confused by Hleb and Alves making their runs into the box and their fullbacks were giving them no support, so they suffered mightily at the hands of rather deadly finishing (putting away 4 goals on 8 chances is deadly, in my book if the other 4 hit the post) and poor midfield work.

My assessment of Eto’o is that he’s a fantastic player. I don’t know anyone who will argue that whatsoever, but what really makes him great in my eyes is his ability to take advantage of the little spaces. He’s not the trickiest with the ball, but he’s deceptively awkward with it; his flailing legs seem to shoot the ball towards inside posts and between keepers’ legs in some disruption of the laws of physics. It’s just so different from Henry’s silky-smooth approach that it’s hard to compare the two.

Henry, I thought, had a good game. In the first half he sauntered over to the left and calmly took passes in from Iniesta, Xavi, and Abidal, would look up, check out what his defender was doing with his hair that day, then slide by him, and cross the ball. Only a poor finish by Eto’o kept it from being 4-0 and only a poor finish by himself kept it from being 5-0. He’ll find his scoring touch even from the wing, as he proved last year, but I still don’t like where he’s be put. It’s what killed me about last year and it’s what’s going to kill me this year, no doubt. Play him as an out-and-out striker and he will get lots of opportunities. The more opportunities he gets, the more reliable he’ll become, and having several world-class attacking options is not a problem. Bojan plays the wing better than Henry, so let him do that and put Henry in the middle. Thank you, Pep.

The midfield was brilliant. Keita didn’t look like he was doing that much, but nothing went through the middle, so he certainly did his job. Xavi had a marvelous game, playing the role he played in the Euros, which suits him just fine. Iniesta, on the other hand, was also playing the role he played in the Euros, but on the opposite side. So he too had a similar game to those he had at the Euros: quiet, calm, collected, but pushing the tempo the whole time. I love how Iniesta works and watching him is a joy because he’s just, well, there. He gets the ball and he knows where he’s going with and so do you and the defender, but then he does it anyway and it’s just a nice, simple ball to Xavi, who suddenly has acres of space to work in. Part of that is Iniesta, to be honest. And part of it is Hleb/Messi and Alves.

Hleb had a decent game, but I think he dithers too much in last year’s mold of hold-it-hold-it-hold-it-pass-at-the-defense-crap-I-lost-it. He is quite capable of being more assertive and I expect him to come in off the bench and be a firecracker wherever he goes, but he just needs to realize that we’re in this to win it and win it beautifully, not just do it beautifully, so he heeds to attack, ala Messi.

And that’s where Alves comes in. As has been pointed out in comments before, he allows the Barca attack to start so much farther up the field because of his immense athletic ability and his ball-handling skills. He may yet turn out to be worth the absurd price we paid for him, but he does need to get a bit more consistent for that to happen. But he’s right there on the cusp of becoming the best signing of the year and it hasn’t even started yet. I love how he plays and how well he’s able to attack, but the back line and the DM (be it Keita or Yaya) are going to have to really be on the look out for the counterattack down the wings when we play better opposition (that should be every game we play this season).

I’m going to return to Keita now and include Yaya in this. I’m perplexed (flummoxed, even) because I haven’t seen enough of Keita to truly feel that I understand his game, but he strikes me as a mini-Yaya with more attacking flair. Will he be employed as the starter above The Iron Giant or will they play together? Kevin has repeatedly suggested we drop Iniesta for the African DM duo plus Xavi, but I am concerned that this would reduce the effectiveness of any left winger/forward we have due to the lack of that little ball that Iniesta plays in and the real creativity he displayed most of last year. Keita may be good, but he’s not Iniesta good with the ball at his feet. At least not that I’ve seen. But Yaya and Keita together is like putting up a roadblock and saying something dorky like “You shall not pass!” and slamming your wand into the ground. Would having that make Abidal the player most of us think he can be thanks to the added protection in the back that Puyol could supply while Abidal was flossing his teeth or whatever in the opponent’s box during a counterattack? Yaya and Keita don’t have room for you in the middle of their field, you know. So get out, silly midfield creators, and stop trying to play with the damned ball. It’s Yaya’s!

My suggestion is simple: drop Henry to the bench. Push Iniesta further up and make Eto’o the lone striker in the middle (to be replaced at the hour mark by Henry, who I believe is very deadly against a tired defense). That way we have a lot of flexibility when it comes to substitutions.

The defense now: I’ve covered Alves, but what of Marquez and Puyol? Again, with the midfield so thoroughly dominated, Marquez was given free reign to run up the field about a mile and a half (as Caceres would do in the second half at the exact same position) while Puyol held down the fort against Juan Pablo Angel. Those forays caused a few problems when all three of the defenders who aren’t ultra-shaggy-haired ran up the field, but never once was the defense truly caught out, not even in the second half. The first goal was a goal that was caused from Alves’ side because, well, Valdes was too busy eating one of those salty cheese pretzels and the grease got on his hands. Puyol was in the right place, Abidal had no shot of getting in the way because, well, the ball fell to the player at the right time to tee it up and drive it home. We do the same sort of thing and call it grand ol’ luck, so that’s what it is when it happens against us.

The second goal, however, was purely and completely Eric Abidal’s fault. No way you can put that on Valdes, who was right to scream at Abi (who, incidentally, yelled right back; they went at it for the entire time before the restart); Abidal virtually walked alongside his man and didn’t close down the only angle he had. Sure, he was covering the cutback, but in order to do so, he let the player waltz right by and deliver a cross — a cross that was badly hit, by the way, but had enough room and time on it to get to the man carving out space at the back post. Puyol was nowhere nearby, having been caught out as he is wont to be when he’s playing the overlapping right back position that he was. That’s why he’s not our right back and it’s what makes Dani Alves so damned good.

In the second half I might as well have gone to sleep. The game became disjointed and only Yaya’s presence drew me in. When that second Red Bulls goal went in, I shook my head in disbelief that we had such a young front line and two completely useless players: Gudjohnsen and Busquets. Busquets has potential, that’s for sure, but he is nowhere near the level required to play at Barcelona. Crosas is better, in my opinion. And I’m not even going to talk about Badjohnsen except to say that he created Pedro’s goal. Feel free to watch the extended replay and check out that throughball he played to Jeffren. Fuck, I was talking shit about him as he did it and I had to admit that it was actually a pretty damned good ball. And no doubt Guardiola saw that and was like “aw snap gotst me a center midfielder.” Dammit!

I was appalled by Pique’s lack of tackling and somewhat impressed by Caceres. Puyol ran his heart out, as always, even though it was just a friendly, but he’s really just not a right attacking fullback. But man does he try hard. Jeffren was fun to watch, but, like Busquets, is not quite ready to make the full step. Bojan was active, sometimes too active for a friendly, but out there to make a point about how good he is. But with no real distribution from the midfield, the plot was lost. Until Pedro got the ball. That kid is the real damned deal and I agree that he should make the step up. He would be the Dos Santos of this year, for sure, but unless they’re actually reserving a space for Gai Assulin this early, Pedritito should be up there. I’m glad he scored and he looked really active. He just needs to be a bit more composed, grow a little bit more by training with the top team the whole year and getting Copa experience, and he’ll be money in the bank. Because we’ll probably ship him out next summer…

That’s all the time I got folks. Hope you enjoyed it.