Football they say is a beauteous sport, that realism becomes
four-legged whenever FC Barcelona graces your TV screen, and so they say
whenever you suffer from sleeplessness, go watch a West-ham VS Reading game (it
tranquilizes better than a lullaby), that’s when you get to appreciate being in
this Barca-adorned generation. Every deft touch, flick, craft and fluidity showcased
by the Catalans, aver that their substance is more than ‘kick-about’ football,
it is more of refined style and class, ensuring victory in topnotch sort
They have been dictatorial in domineering the game for the
last six years achieving feisty landmarks in European and World football, and
have not but toyed with the scepter of club football with their Ghadaffi grasp.
Can you blame them? NO!! FC Barcelona vaunt the finest crop of talent in the
football planetary, ranging from the mestalla harvests (Barcelona Football Academy
revered as the best in the world) to stars (groomed by other teams), who find
them irresistible at any slight pursual.
Watching Barcelona play is now deemed boring by many. Barca
run the game like it’s a circus, and you don’t want to get used to seeing one
team bullyrag around another team for 90
minutes. The experience of the opposition team is like that of a boy learning
to play ‘Computer star-six’ on a newly bought soccer video game, he might end
up breaking his controller pad. Nonetheless, Barca opponents have in recent
times, orchestrated a game plan in demystifying the Blaugrana’s enigmatic
passing game. You have to stick to your gun of resilience in frustrating their
poise by matchmaking their beauty with your beast- yes! I said so.
Anti-football indeed seem the only route to thumping FC
Barcelona. Its effectiveness cannot be over-emphasized. It is as potent as
vasectomy- Go for the balls, and then there is no ball for FC Barcelona. Inter
Milan and Chelsea. Perhaps you have heard of them. They are the winners of two
of the three most recent champions league titles. Moreso is the fact that, they
have clinched renown because of their defensive exploits (or better put signs
and wonders) in taming the ferocious footballing prowess of Barcelona on their
way to European glory.
Having set so many records that might not be broken in our
lifetime or the next, and being immortalized as the best team to have adorn
modern football, the blaugrana are undisputed heroes and innovators in this
game of chants and only those who watch them play through the speaker of a
radio set will controvert this view. And
there is the anti-football, the only known way to beat a side you can’t outplay
(except for a once-in-a-while Real Madrid side), some say its negative football
and such teams that win with it are put in bad light. Whichever lane you ply,
football is football, everyone is entitled to his own opinion, and every
approach that leads you to a result, whether bus parking or rocket launching,
is commendable. This is why this column is adulating the heroics of those who
showed stern guts in depriving the music of Barca’s football rhythm, 100
percent airplay. You think they employed the wrong alternative? I think they
did what needed to be done.
Last week’s villain, according to the Barcelona faithful is
AC Milan. A traditional European powerhouse who through disciplined defending
made ‘FC out-of-this-world’ look mundane and achieved a shocking 2-0 result in
the first leg of their double header in the UEFA Champions League knockout
round. Judging by pure game statistics, Barcelona should have won. But Milan
stunned us, NO! them, with their counter-gimmick and achieved a shocker!!! A
laudable result they worked for.
They are the best team in the world, how can you beat them
when you are not better. The only way is anti-football. Just make sure your
tackles are carefully reckless ( stylishly jab Iniesta and Messi once in a
while, yes! I can be your Mourinho), play ‘kick and follow’ football ( even
your passes should be a volley) don’t forget to always play long balls to your
big number nine upfront (who said DROGBA?) and you could do well and better with fast
widemen. European giants like AC Milan, Chelsea, Inter Milan and relative
Champions League minnows Celtic have all used disciplined defending to usurp
Barcelona. Simply put, it works! It’s effective! And, it gets results!
Barcelona has no answer when it encounters a side hell-bent on enforcing such
tactics. Their passing drabs, they don’t create space, gets few shots if any at
all, and are successfully put to the sword on the counter attack.
Anti-football, as it is referred, is a tactic. It’s a tactic
that can work against any team but is famous for working so well against
Barcelona. Who can blame these teams really? To win a game you must play to
your strength. Hence, defensive football (parking the bus) is what teams who
can’t match FC Barcelona, on an even playing field opt for. They play to their
strengths and to Barcelona’s weakness, the counter attack. Defensive football
is not outlawed by the rules of the game. It’s not much of a show, but it’s a
means to an end, an end that is very much worth the sacrifice to play defensive
football and secure progression in the UEFA Champions League. You don’t agree?
Ask any AC Milan fan how he feels right now and compare it to how a Barcelona
fan feels. These days defensive football is the only antic to get a result
against the best footballing side on the planet.
For every tactic there is a counter-tactic. One would reckon
that after the mistakes made at Inter Milan and Chelsea, Barcelona would have
figured out how to overcome defensive sides, but they have not. They prefer to
entertain, they should join Hollywood, and hence rather than vie for the
standings they would deck the box office ranking. The point is, they believe in
staying true to their style and feels they are the better team. But tactically,
they are not. Barca pride themselves on not just winning, but romping in style,
playing football the right way. They want to put on a show for the spectators,
entertain the masses with their cheer-worthy TV series, come out the hero to be
praised and adored. But in always trying to entertain, FC Barcelona forgets
that in this game, result is what matters most. No one cares about amusement,
no one cares about how you won, but that you did. In this game, sometimes a
clean victory is not possible. Sometimes you must do what it takes to achieve
victory. By keeping true to their style against a defensively organized squad,
they play defensive teams to a disadvantage, plays open, risks everything, and
loses everything. You need to forsake finesse sometimes, one must change what
one does wrong, to ultimately do something right. Barcelona are playing
straight into the jaws of defeat by continuing to approach these fixtures with
the same naivety, as if they were playing at the camp Nou on a chilly Saturday
night against a la liga bottom feeder. One can’t play everyone the same way.
Most teams only play defensive when they face FC Barcelona.
Look at Chelsea, Inter Milan, and AC Milan, these teams play attractive
football week-in week-out. But to achieve result, under very specific
circumstances like facing Barcelona in a two-legged knockout Champions League
tie, they sacrifice their repute for the result. Barcelona on the other hand
isn’t doing the same. They must adapt and sacrifice style. No shame in
defending, matching and rivaling defense with defense. No shame in a 0-0 draw,
their fans will not protest, at the least they won’t play like that
permanently. One must match up with the opposing team. To do so, Barca must
play defensive. There is no way around it, no two way to hell but sin, if
Barcelona doesn’t adjust, they will continue to suffer these type of demeaning
and humbling defeats.
FC Barcelona must conform or face
extinction as a football mainstay. The round leather game is a beautiful sport
and Barcelona in all likelihood play it the most beautifully, but sometimes the
beast (defensive football) is required if the beauty cannot win the day.
