Friday November 27, 2009
By RICHARD LIM
El Clasico is back and Real Madrid travel to the Camp Nou on Sunday to reignite an old rivalry. Will Barca go three up or will Madrid exact revenge?
THE signs pointed to a nightmare week for Barcelona. Decimated by injuries, La Liga’s treble winners were entering a pressure cooker phase in the fixture list. Italian champions Inter Milan, and subsequently, Real Madrid, were coming to town and there was no room for error.
Staring at early Champions League elimination after taking only one point in six against Rubin Kazan, Barcelona had gotten themselves into a real mess and the match against Inter was deemed a must-win.
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MESSI 2 SHOWPONY 1? ... Real Madrid striker Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t too keen on this weekend’s El Clasico random result prediction, apparently. |
With top scorers Lionel Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimovic injured, many wondered how the Blaugrana would navigate the pressure cooker phase. More bad news came as Erik Abidal, Yaya Toure and Rafael Marquez contracted influenza A(H1N1) and had to be isolated.
And to make matters worse, Barca had lost top spot to Madrid in the league after hitting a brick wall – literally – against Athletic Bilbao.
Now, any other team would have reeked of crisis but Barca lived up to their motto Més que un club – more than a club – and tore the script up.
Barca coach Josep Guardiola maintained that his team would stay true to their ethos of attacking throughout. No Messi? No Ibrahimovic? No problem. True to his words, Barca took the game to Inter and they only needed one half to seal the victory.
Despite having their best eleven – minus Wesley Sneijder – Jose Mourinho’s Inter were made to look like amateurs as Barca bamboozled them before taking the foot of the pedal after the break to conserve energy for El Clasico.
The statistics amplify the jarring disparity. By half-time, Xavi, Seydou Keita, Sergio Busquets and Andres Iniesta had played 153 passes. In contrast, Inter’s midfield four barely made 50. Even Mourinho – so often the hyperbole in flesh – conceded that his side was second best on the night.
Their Champions League worries put to rest – at least for the time being – Barca are back in the groove and the stage is set for El Clasico, which literally means “the classic”.
Having achieved a memorable double against perennial rivals Madrid last season, Barca intend to go three up while Madrid are out on a revenge mission after their 6-2 humiliation at the Santiago Bernabeu.
We all know how things panned out after that game. Barca went on to record an unprecedented treble – La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League – and Madrid proceeded to spend ‚250mil in two months, an average of ‚30mil a week.
This adds some extra intrigue to this year’s Clasico as the two sides employ contrasting philosophies when it comes to building a “winning team”. Despite spending big on Ibrahimovic and Dmytro Chygrynskiy in the summer, much of Barca’s squad is homegrown.
Victor Valdes, Carles Puyol, Pique, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, Pedro, Bojan and even Messi learned the ropes at Barca’s vaunted La Masia academy and their Catalan uniqueness is the secret behind their recent success.
On the other hand, Madrid scour the globe for talent, spending excessively to sign the world’s best. Granted, Iker Cassilas, Arbeloa, Guti and Raul – although Athletico Madrid would dispute Raul’s case – are homegrown but only Cassilas is guaranteed a starting spot.
Ousted president Roman Calderon tried to impose some restraint on the purse strings but that is old hat now and the second coming of Florentino Perez has ushered in a new era of glitz and glam. And no, it isn’t a comeback of the Galactico era – it’s worse.
Morality aside, it isn’t all that bad. The new additions of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Karim Benzema and Xabi Alonso, among others, only improve the standard of La Liga and the stars will be out for El Clasico. The fans, one suspects, are the real winners. Never has one match brought together so many marquee players and this year’s Clasico will be watched like no other.
After playing second fiddle to Barca last season, the new-look Madrid have the individual talent to beat anyone. However, Manuel Pellegrini is yet to instil a working philosophy and this could lead to Madrid’s detriment on Sunday.
Despite being the league leaders, Madrid aren’t playing all that well and their flashes of brilliance are often coupled by lapses in concentration. This was evident when their hopes of matching Barca’s treble success ended after a shocking 4-1 aggregate loss to Segunda B side, Alcocorn.
Unlike Barca’s decisive win against Inter, Madrid’s midweek Champions League victory against FC Zurich was laboured, at best. Madrid must pull up their socks to get a result at the Camp Nou and Manuel Pellegrini expressed his worry at a post-match press conference.
“We are concerned because it is not the game we want to play,” he said. “This is not the more technical game I like. But on the other hand, we are very secure defensively. We lack creativity, greater mobility and a bit of luck. We had opportunities and did not put them away.
“It is very likely that we have excessive anxiety, pressure, criticism and a lack of performance in some aspects. It is a credit that the team is where it is. We did not play badly, but weren’t entertaining.”
Now, being secure defensively against Zurich is stating the obvious. It’ll be a totally different ball game against Barca on Sunday and last season’s Clasico at the Bernabeu only serves as a grim reminder.
The silver lining is that Cristiano Ronaldo is back on his feet after an eight-week injury layoff and he might get the green light to start on Sunday. Having both him and Kaka in the lineup would be a boost to Madrid as the two World Player of the Year winners are match winners on their own. And when they’re on song, Madrid are at least equal to Barca when it comes to attacking.
Kaka hasn’t exactly lit up La Liga and some pundits believe that his glory days have passed him by. However, it is still a tad premature to write off the Brazilian as he is known to rise to the occasion. He certainly doesn’t look past his sell-by date when he plays for Brazil.
Ronaldo, on the other hand, played well before picking up his injury and the explosive winger will look to resume business as usual – scoring goals and tormenting defenders. The only concern is his fitness and the first Clasico of the year could come a little too early for the Portuguese pantomime.
Meanwhile, Barca look to welcome back Messi and Ibrahimovic but it is still too early to predict whether both – or any – of them will start. Guardiola fielded Iniesta, Pedro and Thierry Henry against Inter and with Bojan factored in, Barca will have options.
However, Henry’s form is a cause for concern and the Frenchman recently got into the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Despite starting against Inter in his favoured centre forward position, Henry had little to shout about apart from his assist and he might not start if Messi and Ibrahimovic are cleared to play.
Pedro seems to have surpassed him on the left flank and the youngster made a monkey of Javier Zanetti and Maicon on Tuesday. It is said in Milan that Zanetti never plays a bad game but he certainly did on the night and Guardiola might be tempted to throw the wonderkid onto the big stage on Sunday.
Now, we all know how big matches can be but unlike those in Britain where an odd goal by a defender wins the day, El Clasico never fails to disappoint. Yes, yes, La Liga matches tend to air at ungodly hours but unless you’re an Arsenal or Chelsea fan, skip the BPL for once and brew the coffee. It’ll be worth it
