#football updates# THE NUMBER :13

Number of the Day: 13

By the time Barça takes the field tomorrow, it will have been 13 days since Lionel Messi last featured in a game. With the exception of the winter holiday, this will be the Argentine’s longest stretch without playing a competitive match in the 2012/13 season. Like Puyol, Messi is incredibly competitive, and this extended rest – though necessary to recover from injury – has likely infuriated him. While he may not be at 100% fitness tomorrow, after nearly two weeks on the bench he will undoubtedly be raring to go. Bayern Munich has an impressive defense, but even the likes of Dante and Neuer may find themselves hard put to stop an impatient and eager Messi.

#football updates# Andres iniesta equals new record

Iniesta equals Carles Rexach with 447 official appearances

The midfield magician that is Andrés Iniesta has equalled Carles Rexach in the FC Barcelona appearance hall of fame, with an astonishing 447 official appearances.
The La Liga game against Levante is when Iniesta reached the new mark, and he now has only team mates Victor Valdés, Carles Puyol and Xavi Hernández, plus ‘Tarzan” Migueli ahead of him in the all time list. More after the jump.
One of the best players in the history of the club, Iniesta’s appearances are made up of the following: 296 league games, 87 Champions League, 3 UEFA Cup, 46 Copa del Rey, 8 Supercopa of Spain, 2 European Super Cup and 5 Club World Cup.

#football updates# VIKTOR KASSAI TO REFEREE TUESDAY"S SEMI FINAL BETWEEN BATERN AND BARCA

Viktor Kassai to referee Tuesday’s semi-final

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FC Barcelona won’t be unhappy at the choice of referee for the first leg of their Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich on Tuesday.
Hungarian Viktor Kassai will be the man in the middle at the Allianz Arena and Barcelona have fond memories of matches in which he has officiated.
Just over a month ago, Kassai, 37, was in charge at Camp Nou when AC Milan were destroyed (4-0) and he was also present at Wembley in 2011 to officiate the final against Manchester United, a match which ended with Barça’s last triumph in the competition.
The Spanish internationals in the Barcelona side will also recognise him as the referee from the recent 2014 World Cup qualifier between France and Spain (0-1) at the Stade de France in Paris.

#FOOTBALL UPDATES#

The master of risk management: Tito’s defensive changes

Ever since Tito Vilanova was appointed as FC Barcelona’s new coach, the team has broken many records, scored tons of goals, and played some beautiful football. Perhaps not as breathtaking as some of the best of the 2010/11-Barça, but still, beautiful. However, it hasn’t all been all smooth, as Barça’s defensive problems have come to the point where the team has managed to keep a clean sheet only 7 times in La Liga. How have we come to this?
The one thing that has to be stated is that Barça already struggled with defensive issues last season. It’s safe to say that Pep’s Barça struggled with the exact same problems that Tito’s Barça now struggles with; defending counter attacks. However, Pep attacked this issue with a different solution than Tito has.
Pep Guardiola addressed the defensive issues by moving to a formation of 3-4-3, with Sergio Busquets in a crucial role in the midfield. The idea behind this was to add one more man in the midfield to cover the defense line and prevent the opponent from getting to attack directly against the vulnerable back three. This, however, left a huge space to exploit on the wings, as we saw against Chelsea or Real Madrid. What also happened was that there was a huge space behind our defenders, and with only three men at the back, we were simply outnumbered.
Tito has done things differently. He did give the 3-4-3 a shot, but as it failed to impress, he moved back to the more traditional backline of four. He saw a need for a change, and didn’t hesitate to do what had to be done.
Tito’s philosophy regarding the defense could clearly be seen in the beginning of the season. Barça was suffering from many injuries, with both Piqué and Puyol out. Although it’s only speculation, one could think that Pep would’ve attacked this issue by playing with his 3-4-3. Tito didn’t. The first league Clásico is a good example.
Tito put Adriano in central defense, a man who had never played there before. But Tito knew what he was doing. Adriano has the pace and aggressive attributes that a Barça center back needs. And apart from a few positional mistakes, Adriano did a great job. That match was clear proof of the fact that Tito prefers a traditional 4-3-3, or some variation of it.
And perhaps Tito has to prefer a backline of four. That has been the only way to be able to balance with two attacking fullbacks, Jordi Alba and Dani Alves. Tito’s ability to make tactical variations has however been seen in the Champions League match against Milan, as he allowed Dani Alves to attack more freely, with Alba staying back with the two CBs. This has shown that Tito is not obsessed with one tactic or formation alone, he is also willing to make changes, and as he knows the players from his four years as Pep’s assistant, he can make those changes and utilize each player’s potential in an admirable way.
But problems have continued to persist. What has caused the problems with Tito’s Barça is the lack of defensive support from the midfield. With the traditional backline of four, from which Alves and Alba make their runs forward, Busquets plays really deep in the midfield, allowing the attacking midfielders to roam forward. This could be viewed as a good thing when speaking of attack, but it also leaves our midfielders really high up the pitch when they’re supposed to track back and defend. This problem has been even more evident in the absence of some of our key defenders, as we’ve had to play with Song in defense. Song is not the fastest player on the planet, and often tends to drop back a bit too early to cover up for his lack of pace. This leaves a huge space between the defense and midfield, and allows the opponent to attack against the defense alone. The attacking fullbacks added to this have caused us some serious trouble. This is one of the main reasons Tito trusted Adriano in the central defense ahead of Song and Busquets in the first league Clásico.
So all in all, both Pep’s and Tito’s Barça struggle with the open space they leave for the opponent to exploit. With Pep, that space was often behind the defense; with Tito, that space is between the defense and the midfield. Against AC Milan in the second leg, Tito attacked this problem by “going back to basics”. He used a backline of four (which was often a backline of three with Alves roaming forward), and played Busquets in his typical role. But the formation wasn’t the thing.
Tito had advised the center backs to be really aggressive. You could see Mascherano and Piqué really high up the pitch on many occasions. Sometimes, they were even defending in the opponent’s half. Surely, there was a risk of Milan exploiting the space left behind, there was a risk of Barça going back to the problems we faced with Pep, but Tito had thought this through as well. With the aggressive center backs and the compact midfield of three (of which all stayed in the midfield instead of playing as ‘false strikers’), the space between defense and midfield was almost non-existent. With the gaps between Barça’s players being very small, they were able to pressure Milan’s players and prevent them from making the accurate through balls behind the defense.
So as Tito’s tactics can be considered risky, it can also be said that Tito is the master of risk management. Instead of covering the space behind the defenders, instead of hesitating and playing it safe, he was bold. His tactics made sure, that although there was space behind our defense, the opponent wasn’t allowed to play the ball there. This aggressive pressure and compactness was often missed when both Pep’s Barça and Tito’s Barça struggled defensively. And it was Tito who brought it back, while being in New York. And now that he is back from his treatment, it’s obvious that Barça must continue doing the same; keeping the gaps small, allowing the opponent no space or time to build up.
As it still remains difficult to judge Tito’s time as a manager due to his health problems, credit has to be given. Tito has managed to find solutions to the problems that have been there for a long time, not to mention, he’s done all this with many players injured and while being in New York to receive cancer treatment. Many hail Pep as a genius, which he certainly is, but Tito is exactly the same. And most importantly, Tito is a genius when it comes to risk management

FOOTBALL UPDATES # PEDRO WE DESERVE TO BE IN THE FINAL#

Pedro: “We deserve to be in the semi-finals”

The forward proved to be crucial against PSG as his goal sealed qualification for FC Barcelona to the next round of the competition

Piqué, Alves, Bartra, Villa and Iniesta highlighted Messi's contribution to the team

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Anti-doping tests for Messi and Cesc

After the match against Paris Saint-Germain, Leo Messi and Cesc Fàbregas passed an anti-doping test.

The team will train this Thursday at the Ciutat Esportiva.

He works hard throughout the entire game, he wins possession back, he assists his teammates and he simply doesn’t stop. Pedro Rodríguez is the type of player that any team would love to have on their roster. But the forward also has another quality that makes him special: in big matches, in the moment of truth, he’s decisive.

Yesterday evening, a goal from the Spanish forward with 20 minutes to go in the match against PSG sealed qualification for FC Barcelona to the semi-finals of the Champions League. After the match, Pedro said: “we deserve to be in the semi-finals.” The player went on to say that PSG “are a great rival, like any team that make it this deep in the competition.”

Lastly, Pedro had words for Leo Messi: “he worked very hard all week to be with us tonight. We need to thank him and congratulate him for helping the team, he’s the best.”

Here are the statements made by some of the Barça players after the match:

David Villa

“They hurt us on the counter but despite their chances and our errant passes in the first half, I think we played a good match. We’re pleased that we’re going to the next round and that we are still in the Champions League.”

“Leo is the best player in the world and we have to congratulate him for his gesture of dedication and commitment.”

“The semi-final will be complicated regardless of who we play against. We’ll have to prepare ourselves well when we know who our rival is.”

“When you’re in a competition like this one, against a rival like PSG, you have to know how to suffer in order to move forward.”

Piqué

“PSG are a great team with great players, we came into the match knowing that it would be difficult.”

“They also wanted the ball and that forced our defence to cede ground to them."
“There are few teams that come to the Camp Nou and play like they did.”

“When we talk about Leo we’re talking about the best player in the world and when he’s on your team and things aren’t going well, you need to use him. Even though he was practically limping, with him on the pitch, his eagerness to play and ours, the overall game changes.”

Marc Bartra

“In Europe you have to suffer and even more so when you go up against a team like PSG.”

“I was aware that it was an important moment for the team and it was my turn to go in."

“In the semi-finals we’ll play like we always have in order to get to the final. It will be difficult no matter who we play against, but we’ll give 100% to be in the final. We know that from now on each match is a final.”

“It’s difficult to defend against players like Ibrahimovic and Lavezzi, but I’ve been working for years to be able to do it. However, when you play alongside these Barça players, everything is easier.”

Dani Alves

“We knew that it would be a difficult match, they had little to lose and a lot to win, but we took advantage of our chances.”

“They gave it their all and they made it difficult for us, but we knew that we would have to suffer if we wanted to get to the next round.”

“We’re going through a pretty terrible period of injuries to our back line. But if we want meet our objectives we have to overcome these problems.”

Iniesta

“It was a match worthy of the quarter-finals of the Champions League, we went up against a great team with great players and in the end we achieved our objective.”

“There are three great teams in the semi-finals, it doesn’t matter who we go up against. We know that we’re just a step away from the final.”

FOOTBALL UPDATES #THE MESSI FACTOR#

The Messi factor

On Saturday night, Barça went out and trashed Mallorca 5-0. They did it without Messi, without Puyol, Xavi or even Busquets. Sure it was Mallorca and not Man United, Madrid or PSG. But still, it is one of many games that have proved that Barça is not dependent on one or a few players. Of course, Messi is important for Barça, but the team has never been dependent on him. There are games when he came to play from the bench and contributed to a winning result, changed the outcome of the game, like the other day against PSG or like that cold night in Ukraine against Shakhtar in 2008. Let’s make this clear: Barça without Messi wouldn’t collapse. The team isn’t built around Messi, it’s built to get the best out of Messi. The Barça style isn’t dependent on him.
Without Messi, Barcelona wouldn’t have won 14 trophies during four years under Guardiola. But Barça wouldn’t have won those 14 trophies without Valdés either, they definitely wouldn’t have won them without Xavi, Puyol, Iniesta nor Busquets. FC Barcelona isn’t a team that has one world class player but twenty-three of them. Take away one of them and yes, the team will get weaker. But they won’t collapse because there are other players that have the qualities to drive this team.
Without Messi, Barça would be a fantastic team, with him they are an extraordinary team. Against PSG, if Messi hadn’t come on, Barça might not have scored that goal and they wouldn’t have proceeded to the semifinals. But Messi’s presence wouldn’t have been enough hadn’t Victor Valdés saved those seven shots. Messi’s presence wouldn’t have been enough if Pedro had missed his shot or if Villa had misplaced that pass. At this level, one player can never be the entire team. Messi needs his teammates and his teammates need him. FC Barcelona is also a team that will never be about one player, rather it’s a team where every player is an integral part of their playing style.

Obviously, some players are a bit more important than others depending on their position or their performance during a game. Clearly, Messi has the ability to influence a game on his own. But the entire team will never solely rely on him alone. After losing to Inter Milan in the Champions League in 2010, Carles Puyol went over 50 games before losing another game with Barça. During this period of over two years, Barça only lost when Puyol wasn’t playing. It shows the importance Puyol had on the team. When he wasn’t there to scream at his teammates, they would at times find trouble concentrating 100% on what had to be done and Barça dropped points, regardless of Messi’s presence. Andrés Iniesta became the player with the most consecutive games without losing a league game in the club’s history as he went with 55 games before losing to Real Madrid in 2012.
Does this mean Barça are dependent on Puyol or Iniesta? The answer is simply no. Barça is dependent on all their players, and them having a good day.

As a record-breaking, statistics-shattering best player in the world, Messi tends to have more of an impact . Puyol with his leadership is another. Valdés has shown more than a few times how crucial he can be to the team.  But if I was a coach for a team that was going to face FC Barcelona and I had a say in which player would not be aligned in Barca’s starting XI, I would not make them take off Messi, I’d make them take off Sergio Busquets.
For the same reasons that I would have asked them to take off Xavi a few years ago. Back then, it was Xavi who held the maestro stick at Barça, today it’s Busquets. It is him who makes the team play the right symphony. When Xavi had a bad day the entire team had a bad day, when he had a good one the entire team had a good one. A good example is when Xavi had maybe his best ever game, Barça won 5-0 over Madrid. It’s the same with Busi today, if Sergio plays bad then Barça plays bad. If he isn’t playing, the team undoubtedly suffers a lot. The team suffers more without Busquets than without Messi, because Busquets is the conductor and Messi is his star.

Does this mean Busquets is better than Messi? No. Does it mean Barça are dependent on Busquets? No, not that either. It just means that Busquets’ role for Barça on the pitch is just as important if not more than Messi’s role.
Without Messi, Barça would still win titles, but not as many as with him. Barça without Messi is a fantastic football team, Barça with Messi is an extraordinary football team.

FOOTBALL UPDATES #RESULT VS PHILOSOPHY# FC BARCELONA

Imbalances: Result vs philosophy

Prior to Wednesday’s Champions League clash against FC Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain F.C. had given their supporters plenty of reason to believe that the big-eared Champions League trophy was within striking distance. However, Barça limped their way into a sixth consecutive Champions League semifinal (3-3 on away goals) despite the strong counterattacking performance of PSG. While this defeat is likely to prove a valuable learning experience for them in the future, for Barça, the match threw into sharp relief the pragmatic (albeit slightly bitter) reality of imbalances that exist in the team, as PSG clearly succeeded in disrupting the blaugrana passing game and exposed the limitations of an increasingly fragile Barcelona defense.

PSG’s Formation and Style

Ibrahimovic’s menacing presence allows PSG to play a direct style of football, employing a defensive 4-5-1 formation that often becomes a 4-4-1-1. Compared to Watford and Wimbledon’s direct football of the 1980s, PSG’s reinterpretation is significantly more complex since they incorporate modern elements such as pressing and quick wing play to become a more well-rounded counter-attacking side.
Against Barça, Ibra had the perfect chance to bully his former club’s back four, particularly given Adriano’s unfamiliar position. However, he tended to drop back  into a slightly deeper role, in order to be in a better place to initiate the Parisian counterattack and pass the ball to the PSG wingers. Ancelotti hoped to take advantage of the space left behind the attacking Alves, which eventually led to Pastore’s goal and to a lesser extent wanted Moura to attack Alba in one-on-one situations, as had occurred in the first leg. As a result of Ibra’s positioning, he was often marked by Busquets and not just Piqué and Adriano. When in possession, Busquets had to rush his passes because of Lavezzi’s effective pressing. Without the ball, Busquets had to deal with Ibra’s aerial threat. As a result, Busquets, who is largely responsible for Barcelona’s build-up of play from the back, was overwhelmed and the Barcelona midfield was unrecognizable.

Barcelona’s Struggle

PSG and Barça clearly have contrasting styles of play and the encounter can be rightfully characterized as a battle between Barcelona’s possession and PSG’s counter-attack. However, one of the most interesting statistics of the match (as is often the case with Barça) was possession, with Barcelona holding 61% possession. While it is normal that Barça’s possession is somewhat lower in Champions League games than in La Liga, the return leg showed that the blaugrana are beginning to lose patience in the possession-based philosophy, with several frantic attempts to catch PSG out of position on the break.

Pep often insisted that the players’ belief in the system is almost as important as the system itself. In recent times, Barça have looked unsure as to whether attack or defend. In fact, the Barcelona midfield seems to have reached a turning point:  Should it play more horizontally to try and control the game (at the risk of becoming predictable) or should they pursue a more vertical style of play to allow the forwards more space and opportunity to run at the opposing team’s defense  (even though this means they will have less control of the game and may concede more goals) ?

Re-balancing the Individual and the Collective

Messi may have rescued Barça against PSG but the episode has also highlighted the triumph of the individual over the collective.  As the football romantic Marcelo Bielsa points out:
“Totally mechanized teams are useless, because they get lost when they lose their script. But I also don’t like ones that only rely on the inspiration of their soloists, because when God doesn’t turn them on, they are left totally at the mercy of their opponents.”

Of course, few dare question Pep’s decision of moving Messi into the false 9 position, as this has made him the best player in the world (perhaps of all time). While Messi should obviously play where he is most effective, his role in relation to the rest of the team is unbalanced. The dangerous term ‘Messi-dependence’ is creeping up more frequently than ever before; the shift towards accommodating Messi has become too extreme. Barcelona must redefine Messi’s role within the collective if they are to replicate the brilliant achievements of the Guardiola era, and more importantly, if Barça are to rediscover their beautiful style of play.

Bilardistas and Menottistas: What Direction is Barcelona Going?

The debate between a result-based footballing philosophy and the romantic football ideal is as old as football itself. In Argentina, this division is embodied in the ideas of their two World Cup winning coaches. On one hand are the Bilardistas, named after the results-above-all-costs coach Carlos Salvador Bilardo, who won in 1986. On the other hand are the Menottistas, named after the more romantic Cesar Luis Menotti who won in 1978  in what is considered the last incarnation of “la nuestra”. Uncharacteristically, the blaugrana approach against PSG was more in line with the Bilardista philosophy, though it could be argued that this has been the case for most of this season. Barça was always aware of its defensive weaknesses and injuries, employing a cautious approach that brought them to the brink of elimination.
Throughout Tito’s first season, individual traces of brilliance have masked the team’s collective shortcomings as a unit, in the same way that favorable results have allowed Barcelona to hide the flaws that have been apparent since the beginning of the season.