#4 They produced arguably the best club side ever
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Cryuff’s Barcelona ‘Dream Team’ were great, of that there can be no doubt. But in terms of truly great sides, one comes to mind when it comes to Barcelona and that’s Pep Guardiola’s side of the late 2000s.
A legendary midfielder himself, Guardiola took over the club in 2008 after managing the youth team for a period. During that period he innovated a largely new tactic that would come to be known as ‘tiki-taka’ – basically a style of play characterised by a large number of short passes, keeping the lion’s share of possession, using midfielders in defence to capitalise on their passing ability and having a goalkeeper equally skilled with his feet in order to play the ball out from the back.
Various tweaks have been made to the system to make it work for other sides, but Barcelona’s use of it remains the most famous as Guardiola’s players had grown up with it as they came through the club’s La Masia academy. The likes of Lionel Messi, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets and Pedro came to symbolise the style and along with teammates like Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique, were recognised by some experts as the best club side in football history.
Few clubs can say they had a side worthy of being arguably the greatest of all time; even fewer can lay claim to actually innovating a new style of playing that would inspire other great sides. That’s why Barcelona are special.
