9.45 pm 02 April 2016, when Gerard Pique headed FC Barcelona to a 1-0 lead in the El Clasico derby, the Catalans went 13 points ahead of Real Madrid and 9 points ahead of Atletico Madrid. I was there chanting “Pique Pique” from the stands. The world seemed so beautiful.
15 days and 30 minutes later, i.e. 10.15 pm, 17 April 2016, Gerard Pique missed an open goal (ironically the same end goal post) as the domestic league race now has been almost reset to that state as at the start of the season. Even after two rounds of games since, where Barcelona won both games, only one point and head-to-head results separate the top three teams of Spain – did anyone say boring League?
Trending
La Liga now has four teams in line for doing the double – a richness that is unparalleled by the league for a long time. Sevilla are in line for the Copa del Rey and the Europa League, the Madrid twins are in for Champions League and domestic race while Barcelona sit and wonder.
What looked like an easy double and a possible consecutive treble for them is now washed away. The 39-match unbeaten streak saga is on the verge of becoming just a footnote now, more so if they don’t finish with the league title.
Barcelona have everything to lose
This means the double is now obligatory. Anything less will be considered a failure by the Blaugrana’s seeming potential a month ago. All debates around superiority of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona of 2011 vs. Luis Enrique’s team of 2015 will subside for now.
In between, as it happens when results go awry, whispers of a Messi thigh injury, Neymar throwing a bottle and Dani Alves' hairdo were doing the rounds and it could have been worse.
Luis Suarez should have been sent off in both Champions League encounters vs. Atletico; Iniesta too in one of them; Neymar as well in the game vs Valencia.
Last week, Deportivo should have gone 2-1 up in the 22nd min and over the weekend, Barcelona beat Sporting Gijon, thanks largely to some poor refereeing decisions. A look back at both these games and the score lines seem flattering.
In November 2015, Luis Enrique had said “Barcelona’s best is yet to come”. Why did it not come when needed most? Instead, why did an unexplained catastrophe come over? Is the March international break the only responsible factor?
The blips unseen
Last week they trounced Deportivo La Coruna 8-0 and Sporting Gijon 6-0 to provide some relief to fans. But, that can only be a temporary respite. Irrespective, the tight league race to the finish is on. There is no scope for dropping points now. Who blinks first, loses.
Deportivo is the same team who, earlier this season, managed to get points at the Nou Camp despite being 0-2 down with less than thirty minutes to go.
Actually, the 39th unbeaten game in Barcelona’s repertoire also had a similar pattern. Barcelona were 2-0 up with just over thirty minutes to go but had to share the points against Villarreal.
These two games would mean four easy points blown up. Champion teams never let go of 2-0 leads.
Normally when teams like Bayern Munich, Paris St-Germain, Real or Atletico Madrid go 2-0 up against an unfancied opponent, the odds of an upset would drop rapidly.
Winning ugly
Great teams win even when playing bad. Barcelona during the run didn’t seem to have that quality – the tenacity of Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United or the solidity of Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan sides when things aren’t going well is something they can only aspire to. It wasn't there under Pep nor under Lucho this season.
Barcelona have always given the impression that any decent team can hit back two goals if they have half an hour in hand. They experienced that on 2 April and again 15 days later.
The Blaugrana essentially need to create double digit chances to win an average game, assuming their backline will concede one. Against Valencia, even after creating 22 chances, they couldn’t get any points. When you are in a rut and can’t win ugly, winning beautifully becomes tough too.
Invisible bench strength
The Villarreal game turnaround (from 2-0 to 2-2), on 20 March, was courtesy Jeremy Mathieu (directly responsible for both Villarreal goals) who came in as a substitute to give Gerard Pique some rest.
Meanwhile, Luis Enrique didn’t use any substitute in the Valencia game. The Valencia bench with Negredo, Alcacer and Cancelo was looking more menacing that their illustrious counterpart’s bench – Munir, Ter Stegen, and five defenders.
Barcelona, as I write have played 58 competitive games this season – 11 more than Real Madrid, 10 more than Bayern Munich, 6 more than Atletico Madrid. But strangely after so many games, Barcelona didn’t have a bench which the fans or the manager could seemingly have faith upon.
Low on rotation
I did some back of hand numbers of Barcelona’s use of their players up to their 57th game, as on 21 April 2016. 57 games mean, assuming each game runs for 90 minutes plus an average of 4 minutes injury time, a total of 5358 minutes. To negotiate to this point, within 244 days (La Liga started on 22 August), the team would need a squad of 20+ players to share the load.
A point to note is that the South American contingent of the Barcelona squad also played Copa America in June 2015, after finishing their last season's club treble. It was all the more pertinent that the Cules use at least a 20-21 pool of players this season.
That too, while assuming that 1-2 players will always stay injured or suspended. Even a football World Cup calls for squads of 23 players for the month long quadrennial event.
A squad of 21 and hypothetically assuming 13 of the top players take 70% of the season load and the balance 8 players take 30% would mean that the first 13 should have played 3200 minutes each and the next 8 to have played 2200 minutes each by now, approximately.
This is where the imbalance lies. Suarez (4052 minutes), Neymar (3957 minutes), Busquets (3742 minutes), Messi (3631 minutes), Mascherano (3627 minutes) and Rakitic (3492 minutes) all seem to have stretched themselves too far too soon.
Quiz time. Which players have looked the most ineffective in April 2016? Five of the six names above! Mascherano seems to be the only exception.
Ineffective use of squad
On the other side of the table are fringe players who should have clocked 2200 minutes by now but have only played small percent of it. Mathieu (1678 minutes), Munir (1612 minutes), Vermaelen (1181 mins), Turan (1127 minutes) still have respectable game time.
Meanwhile, Adriano, Vidal, Ramírez, Rafinha, and Samper have all clocked below 1000 minutes.
Considering many of them play Copa del Rey and Champions League group games by default, it’s a clear indication that these players had minimal involvement in the Champions League, La Liga and the Club World Cup.
Marc Bartra who has been largely ignored the entire season played last midweek’s game vs. Deportivo for 90 minutes as a replacement for the suspended Pique. Bartra got a clean sheet and a wonderful solo goal. Why was he not utilised better so far?
No. | Name | La Liga mins | Champions League mins | Copa del Rey mins | Club World Cup mins | Total mins |
1 | Luis Suárez | 2792 | 810 | 270 | 180 | 4052 |
2 | Neymar | 2698 | 810 | 360 | 89 | 3957 |
3 | Sergio Busquets | 2549 | 723 | 290 | 180 | 3742 |
4 | Lionel Messi | 2371 | 630 | 540 | 90 | 3631 |
5 | Javier Mascherano | 2351 | 655 | 450 | 171 | 3627 |
6 | Ivan Rakitic | 2268 | 699 | 368 | 157 | 3492 |
7 | Gerard Piqué | 2257 | 596 | 360 | 180 | 3393 |
8 | Jordi Alba | 2254 | 734 | 160 | 166 | 3314 |
9 | Dani Alves | 1851 | 694 | 382 | 180 | 3107 |
10 | Andrés Iniesta | 1905 | 553 | 225 | 171 | 2854 |
11 | Sergi Roberto | 1852 | 334 | 357 | 95 | 2638 |
12 | Jérémy Mathieu | 1227 | 270 | 180 | 1 | 1678 |
13 | Munir El Haddadi | 825 | 257 | 440 | 90 | 1612 |
14 | Thomas Vermaelen | 504 | 270 | 398 | 9 | 1181 |
15 | Arda Turan | 767 | 46 | 314 | 0 | 1127 |
16 | Marc Bartra | 473 | 236 | 331 | 0 | 1040 |
17 | Adriano | 440 | 206 | 324 | 14 | 984 |
18 | Aleix Vidal | 543 | 0 | 317 | 0 | 860 |
19 | Sandro Ramírez | 347 | 173 | 272 | 18 | 810 |
20 | Rafinha | 264 | 31 | 331 | 0 | 626 |
21 | Sergi Samper | 29 | 135 | 270 | 9 | 443 |
Table: Minutes (Stats from Foxsports) played by FC Barcelona players in 2015-16 as on 21 April 2016.
Criteria: Minimum 400 minutes spent on pitch entire season.
Exclusions: The goalkeepers, who were effectively rotated.
Sorting criteria: By highest total minutes to lowest.
So, aside Ter Stegen and Bravo, Luis Enrique basically managed the season with a squad of just 11 players – the top 11 in the table above. Turan added to it in 2016, Mathieu and Vermaelen used off and on.
Not giving adequate confidence or game time to the last six names, not only ensured a weak bench, it also will test squad depth and experience next season, should a couple of key players leave. Pep Guardiola is all set to dangle an English carrot to some of them.
When Barcelona smashed Arsenal 5-1 over two Champions League games, MSN played for the entire 180 minutes each. What was the need? Isn’t Enrique aware of rest and rotation?
What about substituting to eat up game time? Especially when leading 2-0 at the Emirates. On that day, yet again, Enrique didn’t use a single substitute.
There are many such instances when the urge of top stars – to always play – was meted out. Madrid’s Ronaldo always wants to play – but he has played just 44 games this season. He can afford that luxury. None amongst MSN can; who were involved in 62 games last season, Copa America in between and 58 games till now.
Why wasn't the first XI rested vs. Real Sociedad?
Since game time and tiredness is possibly a major factor to explain the slump, especially after the tiring international break - where Barcelona’s players were more affected, many of them flying across continents – rotation was key in April.
I didn't understand and (pre-match) didn't want Enrique to field any of their first eleven players vs. Real Sociedad in April (in the game crunched between the two Champions League quarter-final encounters)
The visit to the Anoeta was their last tough away league game this season. They haven't won there for years and resting the first XI for the upcoming Atletico game, with a slender lead, was more important. Lucho should have started with his second XI for a 1-0 win type game.
Had the second XI team lost, there was not much overall loss compared to what followed later – the first XI played, lost, more tiredness crept in, more yellow cards received and talk about Barcelona looking vulnerable gained steam.
The Barcelona manager may argue that Paris Saint-Germain rested most of their team over the same weekend and yet lost to Manchester City in the Champions League. But PSG are a decade away from being compared to FCB and when tiredness is an issue this was a great option blown away.
Sometimes coaches need to see beyond ego. Had the second XI shown confidence and churned out a narrow win; Enrique's faith on his overall squad depth would have increased exponentially. It would have given the fringe players a big stage to earn the manager’s confidence.
Bad luck of the draw
That aside, luck of the draw didn’t help. No team, barring Bayern Munich in 2012-13 and Barcelona of 2014-15 have won the Champions League beating four big opponents consecutively in the knockout rounds.
Last season, they played Manchester City, Paris St-Germain, Bayern Munich and Juventus en route to lifting the trophy. This season they faced Arsenal and Atletico Madrid – the latter, clearly the fourth best team in the world now.
Compared to Barcelona’s opponents, Real Madrid seems to be beating only Europa Cup level opponents in the Champions League knockout rounds - Roma and Wolfsburg this season, Schalke last season!
In between all Barcelona shock losses and celebrations (depending on which jersey you adore), people have forgotten about Diego Simeone’s team - who sell big players year after year but don't sell their big dreams.
Atletico have made it to the quarter-finals of the Champions League for the third time in the last four years – that’s more than the total number of English Premier League teams to have reached that stage in the same time span (only Chelsea in 2013-14 and Manchester City in 2015-16 have succeeded).
Little rotation and little Plan B
Barcelona’s obvious reluctance to rotate also means they lack an alternate plan. All their plans have to be within that select pool of eleven players (aside the goalkeeper). Hence, all you saw in the second-leg of the Atletico clash and in the Valencia game was Pique joining the attack. Not good enough, not flexible enough and not versatile enough.
The team is in trouble and I suspect the same pool of eleven players will need to depend on defensive luck, refereeing favours, huff and puff for rest of the way. Unless the opposition keeps capitulating that series of wins and the return of the swagger won’t happen - which is also a problem. This is looking so much like Tata Martino’s 2012-13 season now.
Fortunately, they don't have any big team to play now, so hopefully, business, as usual,will return soon.
Till such time, I live in guilt. I hold myself as a jinx to have visited the Nou Camp, as part of my dream football pilgrimage, to cheer for the Catalans vs Real Madrid and the Atletico Madrid games, right when the rut started.
