Neymar: Is he really who Barcelona need?

If there is one phrase I never get bored of repeating over and over again, it is this:

“It is laid down by law that the team who scores the most goals wins. To accomplish this, you must be sure that the defence is sound. All this, I know, is elementary but it is also the rock bottom of football.”

- Herbert Chapman, Arsenal manager, 1925-1934

Last season, what was glaringly obvious when Barcelona took to the pitch against their peers was the absence of a solid back four. While that may not be absolutely necessary while playing against teams that occupy the middle of La Liga, it is absolutely vital when taking on the likes of Manchester United, Juventus or AC Milan, they did come unstuck on more than one occasion in Madrid, Paris and Munich.

Because of the prodigious talent of Messi, Barcelona could continue to prove to the world that offence is the best form of defence. But as teams learned followed Charles Darwin’s percepts to adapt to Barcelona’s tiki-taka style of play, it meant that once they had learned how not to get prised open by Xavi’s and Iniesta’s passes, they could strategise their own plan of attack. And once they did attack, Barcelona did not have the manpower to deal with them.

The last time Barcelona had four centre-backs of international quality was when Rafael Marquez and Gabriel Milito were at the club along with current Blaugrana Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique. With these four players at the side, Barcelona lifted three Champions League titles in six years and swept the sextuple in 2009. Coincidentally, the last of those three triumphs came in the 2010-11 season, the year in which Milito exited the club.

Since the departures of those two players, there hasn’t been a single centre-back signed by Barcelona. The last proper centre-back to be signed by them was Dmytro Chygrynskiy in 2009 and he ended up going back to Shakhtar – who made a tidy profit re-signing him – at the end of that season despite having a moderately successful season in Spain.

Messi’s world-class abilities and the triumvirate he formed with Xavi and Iniesta meant that while they held forth on the pitch, they did not need to sign defensive players because other teams got the ball so rarely, and when you do not have the ball for extended periods of time, the know-how you possess in the moment when you do have it significantly reduced because having the ball at your feet becomes a somewhat alien concept.

That meant that players such as Seydou Keita, Yaya Toure, Javier Mascherano, Alex Song and even Sergio Busquets were converted into makeshift centre-backs when either Puyol or Pique (in some cases, both) were unavailable. The foundations of any team lie in it’s defence.

Let’s compare Barcelona to Bayern Munich, the team that brought them soundly back to earth from whichever planet they were supposedly on. Despite the presence of Franck Ribery, Thomas Muller, Xherdan Shaqiri, Toni Kroos, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Arjen Robben, there is a full complement of centre-backs at the Allianz Arena. Dante, Jerome Boateng, Holger Badstuber and Daniel van Buyten are all excellent centre backs and that defensive solidity has given the team’s attacking players the confidence they need to find the back of the net.

During the game against Barcelona in Germany, they cruelly exposed Barcelona’s defensive frailties. Critics of Barcelona’s dependence on Messi say that without the presence of the Argentine, Barca look distinctly sub par and those who disagree were silenced on that night.

What was even more obvious was Barcelona’s vulnerability at set pieces and crosses. Two out of the four goals that day came from set pieces and the Barcelona defence looked all at sea. What they needed there was a leader marshalling that back four and he was not present: Carles Puyol had once again succumbed to his oft-recurring injuries that has seen him miss so much of the last two seasons and the 2012 European Championships for his country.