Wednesday 18 April 2012

One last hurrah for the Chelsea old guard

Slogged would be the word to describe how Chelsea have made their way to the final of the FA Cup and semi-final of an even more prestigious competition, the Champions League. Despite their shaky league form, could this be the year they claim an unlikely double?

The Londoners will head into the former as favourites having blown away rivals Tottenham 5-1 over the weekend. However, the latter is a different kettle of fish entirely.

Tonight Chelsea go head-to-head once again with Barcelona, the world's greatest team, on the biggest stage in club football. The last time the teams met, Barca scored in the last-minute to progress on away goals rule. This was the infamous match where referee Tom Henning Ovrebo retired after receiving death threats for dismissing multiple Chelsea penalty appeals.

It is three years since that day and Chelsea have only made minor changes to their team; the spine of Cech-Terry-Lampard-Drogba remains the same. With the exception of Juan Mata, who has at times carried Chelsea through rough patches of form, the latest recruits have failed to produce the major impact needed to replace the ageing core four.

Fernando Torres is a shadow of the player he was before his injury and in all honesty it has often been only the £50 million transfer fee that has demanded he be played. Another signing from Liverpool, Raul Meireles, has been criticised for ignoring his defensive duties.

The progress of Salomon Kalou will have greatly disappointed Chelsea fans, as after showing promise he has been confined to only 14 appearances this campaign. Conversely, it has been a breakthrough season for Daniel Sturridge but whether he can be viewed as a world-beater yet is questionable, and is more likely to be reserved for super-sub impact.

In defence, a lot has been said on centre-back not looking like David Luiz's natural position. It led to the signing of Gary Cahill, who has impressed, though not enough to hold down a definite starting position.

The failings of these new signings to integrate themselves as Stamford Bridge favourites could mean it is down to the old guard to once again to fly the flag for Chelsea in Europe.

They did it against Napoli in the quarter-final when firstly Drogba, then Terry, then a Lampard penalty hauled Chelsea back from an adverse 0-2 first-leg scoreline. Such iconic performances will be difficult to repeat against Barca who are now playing their attacking football so confidently that they regularly leave just one player, Carles Puyol, to sit in defence.

It will take an immense effort for a 33-year-old Didier Drogba to be the tormenting menace he was in his prime. However, his well-timed thunderous opener against Spurs on the weekend showed he can still be the big game player when needed. It may have been just what was needed to reinvigorate him.

Chelsea will be hoping Frank Lampard can orchestrate the midfield so Ramires and Mata are free to take the game to Barcelona. They also need their captain to show the kind of commitment as he did in the 2010 World Cup, when in the purest act of devotion he threw his body desperately to block a Slovenian shot.

What’s more, they need to do it not once but twice. Interim manager Roberto Di Matteo will tell his veteran players to seize this chance because the opportunity to realise the Abramovic dream may not come around again.

Friday 13 April 2012

The novelty of Messi will soon wear off

This is a blog about the feared consequences of success. The 2011/12 season has seen Lionel Messi continue his progress to football’s elite and beyond, and in doing so smash almost every goalscoring record in sight. At 24 he is Barcelona’s most prolific marksman and has left journalists scampering to think of a season in which one player has scored more goals. His success, however, has come at a loss to the other Catalan megastars.

As identified in the previous blog Messi has taken on three new roles: that of centre-forward, penalties and free kicks. These I see as mere additions to his arsenal at the expense of others in the Barcelona team. It’s not as if taking these roles has relieved pressure on others so they can perform greater. It’s Messi stealing their thunder.

Such has been his success after six years of first-team club football is that there are now very few records left to break. One more Ballon D’or and a handful more Champions League goals would see him take the outright record in two very good judges of footballing talent. And he is still in his footballer youth.

For these reasons I cannot hide my concern as to how long fans will continue to be blown away by his headline-grabbing performances. Barcelona are at risk of becoming less known for their tiki taka and more for their one source of unbelievable footballing ferocity.

The legendary status that he holds in the game is so immense that ITV recently broadcast a programme called ‘Lionel Messi: World’s Greatest Player’. He has been analysed as if his contribution to football is already so significant that it deserves to be looked back upon a mere third of the way through his professional career.

Will we start to see Messi run off to celebrate but find his teammates can’t match him for speed and have to celebrate alone? Should Messi do what Ronnie O’Sullivan did at snooker and play with his other limb because the sport was too easy for him?

One possible solution to this boredom of goals is a move to the Premier League where Messi, without his reliable henchmen Andres Iniesta and Xavi, will have to prove his worth on a wet Monday evening against Stoke. Unfortunately for Blackburn, due to Messi’s boyhood club loyalty and the obstacle of raising enough money to create civilisation on the moon, this happening is highly improbable.

Instead, the situation where Barca and Spanish fans in general grow distaste for their countrymen being outshone weekly may develop. It is nigh on impossible for Xavi or Iniesta to win Ballon D’or when their teammate is consistently grabbing backpage headlines and outscoring them by a country mile.

The whole Barcelona team, which comprises a minimum six Spanish national team players every game, is tailored to assist Messi in his pursuit of goals. There may come a time when acknowledgement of their wonderful abilities is not enough and they want recognition in the individual form that Messi absorbs as part and parcel of life.

A radical option for Barcelona to take (which I can hardly contemplate enough to write) is they decide to sell their cosmostar. This would happen come the time when opponents have truly run out of ideas to stop him, his teammates are missing out on fulfilling their goalscoring potential and the media have run out of fresh words to use to describe how brilliant he is. Barca would be compelled to get rid of Messi because of his overperformance.

It could even be argued that Barcelona would be more interesting without Messi. It would certainly give a wide range of players a greater responsibility in attack. But imagining Barcelona without Messi is almost unthinkable as he is becoming at the speed of light what Totti is to Roma and Ferguson to Manchester United: bigger than the club.

One about the future is consistent: Messi will continue to improve and the gap between the importance of him and other players to Barcelona is similarly likely to increase, which leads me to the conclusion that the novelty of Messi will begin to wear off. Soon.


Imperious; photo by boldorak2208 (flickr)

Thursday 12 April 2012

Barcelona in 2012: more team Messi than ever before

Barcelona have a maximum of 10 games left to play in the 2011/12 season. Messi has 61 goals from 51 games.

December’s World Club Cup match against Al-Sadd represented a pivotal moment in the future of Barcelona and the career of Lionel Messi. In that match David Villa broke his leg, an injury that would keep him out for the entire season. And an injury that turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Barcelona as will be argued in this post.

Messi assumed Villa’s position as centre-forward and took complete control of the role of team penalty taker. After a few games, coach Pep Guardiola saw Messi’s potential for goals as central attacker and adapted the team so that Messi was supported by his teammates more than ever before.

Lio leads the Barcelona scorer charts with a frankly ludicrous 61; below him is Cesc Fabregas, Xavi and Alexis Sanchez who together have scored 42. In previous seasons pundits would point to the Barcelona front three who together would accumulate over a hundred goals, but in 2012 there is now just one focal point to Barcelona: Lionel Messi, who puts the ball in the back of the net every time.

Barcelona’s enormously successful footballing philosophy that has brought them three of the last six Champions Leagues had always featured a razor sharp three-pronged attack. It is hard to pinpoint exactly why their source of goals is now narrowing to just one man. There appears to be a number of contributory factors instead.

The current squad’s players who would otherwise fulfil the wide positions, Pedro and Sanchez, have been limited to just 26 starting appearances. Taking their place has been Fabregas and recently elevated to the first team Isaac Cuenca.

The rationale for the decreased need for individualistic attacking players appears to be that Messi has now reached the level of excellence to be able to perform all three roles. Having two players either side who assist, rather than score themselves, has been preferred by Guardiola, and the result is Messi’s goal tally has soared.

As the season progressed, Messi has upped his involvement in free-kick taking duty. The responsibility now rests three-way alongside Dani Alves and Xavi. In future seasons, judging by his impeccable improvement curve it would be no surprise to see Messi wrestle the duty away from two of Barca’s most established players. It would further assist the change from FC Barcelona to FC Messi.