Gabriele Marcotti
Pep shows genius
Well before Lionel Messi’s goal gave Barcelona a 3-0 lead at home to Valladolid yesterday that all but sealed La Liga, something was obvious. This is an outstanding team, perhaps one of the greatest most of us have seen.
The record books will tell you that they won La Liga with a record-breaking 99 points while winning the Club World Cup and Spanish and European Super Cups. Tinpots they may be — usually to those who don’t win them — but you still have to go out and beat your opponents. On the flip side they will also register Barcelona’s shortcomings, namely that they went out in the round of 16 of the Copa Del Rey, to Seville, and, most notably, the semi-finals of the Champions League, to Inter Milan.
A layman might look at this and suggest that Barcelona took a step back this year compared with last. After all, they won fewer trophies and failed to reach the Champions League final. But, in fact, Barcelona’s greatness this season lies in its evolution in the way that there was a transition into something different.
Last summer Pep Guardiola avoided the biggest pitfall facing successful coaches. He understood that there is no such thing as standing still at the top. You can change and take a chance on progressing or you slide backwards. There is no such thing as: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And when you change, you necessarily expose yourself to mistakes and criticism. But the measure of a coach is how he handles that criticism and resolves those mistakes. Dmytro Chygrinskiy was one such mistake. A 6ft 4in hulk of a defender who cost £22 million, he was supposed to add depth to the back four and, ideally, become a regular by mid-season. Instead, he turned out to be a colossal dud and Guardiola was forced to move to a Plan B. With Carles Puyol showing signs of age, trusting him in central defence could have been problematic.
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So Guardiola created a defensive scheme that masked Puyol’s inadequacies and highlighted his strengths, effectively forming a defensive triangle with his fellow centre half, Gerard Piqué (who in the meantime has grown into one of the best in the world at the position), and whichever player was sitting deep in midfield — usually Sergio Busquets or Yaya Touré.
Given that Barcelona usually had the bulk of possession and faced opponents who played a lone striker, the defensive “triangle” meant that the side were rarely short-handed, while ensuring Puyol was hardly ever left to defend one-on-one. At the same time, this co-ordinated defending exalted Puyol’s pace and, especially, his ability to read the game.
Barcelona’s biggest signing of the summer was also their biggest flop.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic was acquired in exchange for Samuel Eto’o , a package approaching £70 million. Ibrahimovic ended the season on 20 goals — ordinarily not a terrible return — but his apparent sluggishness and lack of movement ultimately led to him being dropped for the title run-in. Again, that is something that took courage of the kind Guardiola has displayed throughout his time in charge at the Nou Camp.
With Thierry Henry also on the slide (he would finish with only four league goals) and Andrés Iniesta injured (he would not start a game after March) this meant that Barcelona entered the crucial weeks of the season without three quarters of their front four. Admittedly, it helped that the one quarter that was unchanged was Messi, who finished the year with 47 goals in all competitions, surpassing Cristiano Ronaldo’s feat of 42 two years ago.
Guardiola found his solution. He added more muscle to the midfield, handed Xavi Hernández more attacking responsibility and inserted Pedro Rodríguez and, eventually, Bojan Krkic into the front three. What Barcelona lost in size, they gained in sharpness and movement. Which was exactly what they needed at the time. Because that’s the other quality of great coaching. Once you identify a solution, you need to be aware that it’s not permanent. A front line of Bojan (5ft 7in), Messi (5ft 6in) and Rodríguez (5ft 6in) is not viable in the modern game, unless you leave La Liga and join the “Smurf League”. But in a certain time and place — Spain, May 2010 — it was exactly what was needed.
Getting to the top is tougher than staying there. It’s a cliché, but it’s true. Guardiola has had to adapt and make adjustments. Odds are, he will have plenty more to sort out over the summer. But the way he has handled things thus far, you would not bet against him. Not because his bold moves succeeded — they didn’t — but because once they failed, he quickly readjusted, adapted and found a solution.
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