Comparing Caceres and Hleb

By: Isaiah | July 30th, 2009

During discussions about the various transfers we have left to make (or not make), reader Cojonudo pointed out that often times there is a lot of vitriol aimed at Hleb and it is, perhaps, not warranted. I have to admit that I am one of those anti-Hlebsters most of the time (if not all the time), that I’m fairly zealous in my condemnation of him and that, again perhaps, I didn’t give him his fair shake.

So, I’m here to right that wrong and give him his fair shake by comparing his treatment with that of Martin Caceres, our other new signing who will be going out on loan this coming year. Hleb, of course, is headed to Stuttgart for the year and Caceres is going to Juventus (who have an option to buy), so their current situations are fairly identical except that Hleb’s is seen as a “thank god” by most cules, at least as far as I can tell, while Caceres’ is being treated as a “one that got away” kind of deal.

My thoughts on Martin Caceres: he is a strong defender with incredible pace, good tackling, and a slight knack for not being in the right place at the right time. He is also 22 years old. One thing about defenders is that they generally take a couple of extra years to become extremely good. That Pique is now considered our primary started at LCB is kind of absurd and shouldn’t be looked at as a standard growth rate. It’s not standard, it’s abnormal to the point of absurdity. I am disappointed that Caceres is going to Juventus (who may or may not employ the buy option on him, but if he’s any good next year he’ll be purchased by them for a net loss of €4m to us), but I can understand the idea that he wasn’t fitting in right in our system. No one will fit in immediately, that’s the truth of the matter. To go back to Pique again, he fit in so well because he’s a canterano — Caceres is, of course not. Caceres, however, showed his quality at Recre in 07/08, got a €16m move to Barça last summer and was put onto the field for 13 league games, 7 cup games, and 3 CL games. During that time I thought he was adequate, with only one extreme stinker of a game and even that was actually just a stinker of a half (against Atleti in the Copa).

What Caceres showed me was that our defense isn’t going to magically become 100 times better by adding more new faces — it takes time and training alongside Puyol and Marquez for anyone to fully understand the concepts behind our version of Total Football. Perhaps Caceres’ passing was up to that standard and he should go. I can buy that, I’m fine with that. I disagree to a certain degree, but I can understand that. Every time he was on the field, he was playing hard, trying to prove his worth, and crack the starting lineup. It was a goal of his, not a previously-earned right. He knew that and he worked hard when he was on the field — perhaps too hard — in order to achieve that goal, to earn that privilege. Perhaps he worked too hard, pressing instead of learning. Unfortunately he is going to Juventus (not a small club, mind you; it’s unfortunate for us) and it will be interesting to see whether those saying he will work out in a different system are on the right track or not.

As for Alexander Hleb: he’s technically gifted, capable of creativity, and understands the concepts of the possession game, but he lacks speed (read: doesn’t lack pace, is in fact quite fast, but lacks quickness in his decisions). He is also 28 years old. He’s at the age where he should be at “the peak of his career” if you believe in such generalizations, or at least he should be close. As I said before, it takes a bit for players to adapt to new systems, but after Arsenal, the turnaround time shouldn’t be all that long for a midfielder (the case of Henry is interesting and I might tackle that in a different post; suffice to say that Henry’s positioning was different enough between to the two systems to cause a delay in his adaptation…and I bad-mouthed him last year for not adapting quickly enough during that first year), especially one whose entire game is possession-driven and creative.

There is something to be said for his lack of regular playing time, but, as with Caceres, I find it hard to justify keeping him around based solely on that simply because it won’t be changing in the coming year. Whereas I see Caceres as a work-in-progress, I see Hleb as a completed work, as someone who as achieved his potential and his potential isn’t right for our squad. I don’t think he’s a bad person — I don’t know him — but I do think that he isn’t working hard enough to integrate himself into the squad, the evidence of which is that he hasn’t learned Spanish (it could be that he has trouble learning languages, but it appears to be a lack of effort on his part) and he’s been talking about the team and Guardiola to the press. What Hleb apparently needs is some fan/coach love and playing time, but on our squad he’s just not going to get that in any regular dose because there are others ahead of him in the pecking order.

Coojonudo also makes the point that we spent a summer “courting” Hleb just to toss him to the wolves after a solitary year. Fair enough, except from my point-of-view I was always opposed to his signing so, I suppose, at least I can act like I saw it coming. If I’m going to cop to being wrong about Henry (who I said would never really make it at Barça), I think it’s only fair that I get to say “I told you so” about Hleb, too. In all fairness, though, I was opposed to Hleb, but once he arrived, I attempted to support him in his getting-to-know-the-system phase. At least I think so — feel free to go back through the old posts and cherry pick some awesome statements by me that show I’m full of it now, too.

All-in-all, I think that Hleb has the skills to be a good player at Barcelona, but he doesn’t have the mental game required to play at lightning speed like Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi. That was Henry’s primary problem in his first year, but his class helped him to make up some of the difference. Hleb is not as good as Henry (at their respective positions, of course, though that’s apples-to-oranges), so it’s probably unfair to hold him up to the same standard. Except that he was a Barcelona player, so the standards are pre-set in a lot of ways. If Oleguer gets trashed for not being up-to-standard, which he wasn’t, then so does Hleb. And Caceres too, for that matter. Henrique, Maxwell, and Ibrahimovic all face this same test come Aug 31, so it’s not that Hleb was singled out unfairly, it’s that he didn’t preform well enough during his admittedly limited minutes to earn more quality starts. Pedro! is an example of someone sticking to it and playing hard to get minutes and he’s still going to be on the bench most of the year. Bojan, too, has put in his hours, but he’s not a starter very often.

So that’s a couple of thoughts — by no means a complete study — that should explain a bit about how I feel and how I arrive at some of my assertions.

I hope that Hleb is able to regain a measure of his form at Stuttgart and I hope that Caceres performs well at Juve, but I’m not holding my breath about either. Also, consider this their official goodbyes from me. They weren’t around long enough to warrant full posts apiece.