That sucked.
But.
Let’s say we prevailed. Atleti carved through our defense, hit the post a bazillion times, and made us look silly, but then Messi was somehow able to nick a goal, and somehow we pull a ridiculous winner out of nowhere. So we advance.
What good does that do the club in the long term? If our systemic and player issues don’t hurt us against Atleti, they’d definitely hurt us against Chelsea, or Bayern, or maybe Ramos doesn’t pull a Ramos and we don’t get penalties to win against them.
Fact is, the team has stagnated since 2011, the board is at fault, and without restructuring and revamping it will continue to stagnate. So regardless of whether we go out to an Atleti team that was DOMINANT and played their asses off or we lose to Jose Mourinho, the fact is problems exist. Going to the semis means a greater chance of excuses from the board and that means no new players (should we be allowed to make signings anyway) and that means next year we might not make it out of the group. Or past the round of 16.
HOPEFULLY, the ban is suspended long enough to make additions this summer and, HOPEFULLY, our board isn’t 100% blind and realizes that, hmmm, after not making the semis for the first time in years, and with key players being over 30, and not having a striker, and not having a Xavi replacement, and not having a defensive fullback, we might need a few signings.
At the moment, there’s not much we can do. Our starting CB is injured. Our goalkeeper is sidelined for 6 months. We’re once again playing Xavi way too many minutes and relying on him. And, to make things worse, we have no clue what to do with Messi, yet we continually turn to him and say “SCORE. I COMMAND YOU.” Newsflash. He might not act like it, but Messi IS human.
But we can still win two trophies. We can still give Puyol one last season for glory. We can still show the league and Real Madrid that the current crop of players isn’t quite done yet. So we support our team and we congratulate Atleti and we recognize that Martino has done a great job despite having an incomplete puzzle and even though he’s made a few mistakes here and there he isn’t perfect either.
Now I’ll write a short piece on tactics and outline the route I think we need to go.
First: recognition of problems.
1. Xavi is unreliable in his current state. He’s still a boss, no doubt, but he’s not the same boss he used to be (duh). I’ve wanted to write a complete article on planning his succession, and it’s about 60% done, but unfortunately other obligations have prevented me from finishing it. Point is, Xavi is a genius, and amazing, but he can’t play with the same energy, can’t press with the same tenacity, and make the same runs as he could a few years ago. It’s age, folks.
2. Cesc isn’t cutting it in big games. In three seasons here, he’s probably been our most inconsistent player. At least Alexis generally followed an upward track, but Cesc has gone from brilliant to terrible to brilliant to invisible almost game to game. People will point to his assist numbers, but that’s just it. Cesc hits through-balls. He’s a vertical player. He spent nearly a decade in the Premier League learning how to become a Premier League midfielder and that’s what he is. And if he hasn’t readjusted to possession play he just isn’t going to. Cesc needs to play as a 10 with creative freedom to pop up in space and hit through balls. Early on, Tata’s system really worked to Cesc’s strengths because he was higher up the field, facing goal when he received the ball. He could easily knock balls into forwards to finish. But in the control template he’s useless. He’s another cog. An extra pass. He doesn’t help control tempo, he gives the ball away, and he isn’t quick enough to have a great effect either offensively when attacking defenses or defensively when trying to keep up with pacey attackers.
3. Messi has no role. It’s been really odd to watch Messi these past few weeks, because he doesn’t have a defined role and we aren’t getting the best out of him. Now disagree with me if you want, but Messi should be the icing on the cake, the spearhead, and the dude that puts us over the top. He should be the best player on a great team. Right now he’s forced into BEING the team. And it’s really hurt his productivity because he can’t just play his game.
4. Alves/Alba is still suicide. Self-explanatory.
5. A defense so suspect it’s like an old, balding man with glasses and a mustache in a black trench coat sitting alone in a blacked out van next to a children’s playground.
6. Busquets is forced to do too much. Right now this dude is having to do the work of like 3 guys. He’s defending attacks all over the field. Initiating counter. Providing reliability. Controlling the attack. Etc. etc. etc. It’s too much. Even for Busi.
7. Crossing doesn’t work. Unless we like futility. But seriously, launching 14 crosses at Neymar and Messi is the equivalent of throwing water balloons at a tank, hoping one will magically find its way inside and cause a catastrophic mechanical failure.
8. The team’s Plan B is a dumber and more ineffective version of Plan A.
9. WTF happened to positional play. Like it’s fucking gone. In past seasons, when Xavi or Messi or Iniesta had the ball in that half-space area about 30 yards from goal and would take a touch forward, it was like setting off a firecracker. Pieces would just start to move. You’d get third runs off the ball, overlaps from the fullback, decoy runs from Pedro, and Messi would just ghost out of nowhere and finish. Now, Iniesta would get the ball, look up, start to dribble forward, and the entire team is just standing like statues. And no, it’s not just Cesc, even though he takes fifteen minutes to run from one side of the field to the other. It’s literally the entire fucking offense when Alexis isn’t on the field to run very fast in circles. What. The. Fuck.
10. Seriously this team defensively gives me diseases. Can we not press like at all? If you can’t rely on the defense itself, you have to press as a team. We don’t. We watch balls go over Masche’s head and then watch the ball hit the crossbar and everyone’s still standing around looking vaguely annoyed that no one else is moving to clear the ball. Then it goes in the back of the net and ball watching Busquets realizes that, "oh, maybe I should’ve turned my head and looked behind me instead of watching Jordi Alba go into an aerial duel.
So yeah, that’s a lot for step 1. We’ve only recognized a few of the problems and there are probably more but whatever. We’ll start here.
1. Alright so we can pretty much solve problems 1, 2, 6, and 9 and start addressing 10 simply by buying another midfielder. I won’t name names, but a certain Dortmund player would take over Xavi’s role in buildup and pressing, be quicker and less direct than Cesc, help Busquets defensively, and massively improve positional play because he can make runs off the ball and ahead of forward players.
2. A pair of defenders will solve 4, 5, 8, and 10 somewhat as well. Using a defensive right back and an illustrious CB who’s NOT named David Luiz will go a long way.
3. A #9 will solve 3, 9, 8, and 7.
Alright so here’s my tactical outline.
We either play a team that parks the bus (Atleti) or a team that plays us straight up (Madrid). Obviously slight variations on these themes, but for the most part, we’re either going to get a team that viciously presses and continues to remain open so as to always be on the front foot or we’re going to play a team that defends solidly in rigid banks of players.
So, any team we field must be able to:
1. Defend the counter
2. Play out of the back effectively
3. Find solutions against a bus
4. Absorb pressing
5. Defend in numerically-even scenarios or even numerically-negative scenarios
This means TACTICAL AND FORMATIONAL FLEXIBILITY. If Barca can find that, the club will be successful.
