Poor team selection and inability to sustain high pressure played into Real's hands
Monday 27 October 2014 16:35, UK
Barcelona's El Clasico defeat proves things are not as they should be at the Nou Camp. Guillem Balague examines the fall-out...
Mathieu played the entire game like a dwarf non-swimmer in a pool of giants.
Mark Twain asserted in his biography that “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”
Statistically speaking, Barcelona walked onto the Santiago Bernabeu to face Real Madrid, top of the table, unbeaten, with 22 goals scored and not so much as a goal conceded.
These are the stats but the facts tell a different story. Twice this season Barcelona have had to step up to the plate and face a real test and twice they have been found wanting. This is a team that flatters to deceive - a team that is a country mile away from the ‘new-look’, re-born Barcelona everyone was hoping for.
Defeat against Paris St Germain in the Champions League was the first sign of a blip – Barcelona lost control of the midfield and of the game; their lines were too separated. Now this comprehensive reversal against the old enemy, Real Madrid, proves incontrovertibly that things are not as they should be at the Camp Nou.
And the blame, unfortunately, falls full-square on the shoulders of new coach Luis Enrique.
Embarrassment
Let’s look at team selection first.
In picking Jeremy Mathieu at full-back in preference to Jordi Alba he picked someone to: a) defend against set pieces and b) put the shackles of Gareth Bale. In the end, poor Mathieu does not have the level to play at full back any more, although in fairness to him, at least, the absence of Bale through injury probably halved his embarrassment…
Mathieu is a fine player, a fine defender. A Barcelona full-back, with everything that brief entails, he isn’t. In picking him over Alba, Barcelona threw away all the positives that Alba brought to the table, especially his ability to widen the pitch and put in crosses from deep positions - even appearing in the box sometimes.
All the talk had been of Luis Suarez, and of transitions and what we got, apart from the first team debut of the Uruguayan, was seven players from the 2011 Champions league final in the starting line-up; eight that had played in the last Clásico; six over 30s.
New players might be forgiven for asking the question, “Transition, what transition?”
To be fair to Luis Enrique and the decision to pick Suarez, he was always in a ‘damned if I do, damned if I don’t’ situation, and Suarez was at least instrumental in laying on Barcelona’s opener and also in teeing up Lionel Messi for what could have been a very interesting second goal had Iker Casillas not spoiled the party.
Caught
And in fact Barcelona had kept to their game plan until the Real Madrid goal, but it was the way they collapsed after that, with not a clear idea of what to do, that scares many.
Unfortunately Suarez’s ability not to put in a shift at the ‘coal-face’ meant his contribution was never going to be enough. He was good enough with the ball, if lacking a bit of rhythm, but simply either unwilling or unable to work hard enough without it.
Left without a front three able to sustain a high pressure, then potentially the Barcelona party collapses and in big games – and they don’t come much bigger than Clasicos and Champions League fixtures – Barcelona will pay.
Ultimately what you have is a team caught between two styles; a coach unable to find the balance between quick transitions and continual possession.
The fact is that unless Luis Enrique can get his front three working as a team then he could be in trouble - and for Suarez in this situation, also read Neymar.
Resolution
Real Madrid, on the other hand, are in no mood to offer a shoulder to cry on. They were superb, and the other big reason for the result, obviously. Carlo Ancelotti has declared that this group of players are the most professional he has ever worked with and they certainly showed aspects of that against Barcelona.
Organised, pressured, and with Marcelo and Dani Carvajal superb from start to finish in their tireless roles as marauding, creating full backs combined with a toughness and resolution in defence when it mattered most, this was a Madrid side that was full value for its win.
Toni Kroos and Luka Modric showed yet again that their partnership could very well become a marriage made in heaven (although neither are natural defenders and the way Kroos acted in the Neymar goal, missing his mark, can be worrying in other top games), while the performance of Isco once again showed the world that he has finally graduated into the elite.
Isco is a player that has finally learnt from his boss, the sagacious Snr Ancelotti, that it’s not about how fast, how far or how often you run, but rather when and where you decide to run, and that’s a piece of advice that could well see the precociously talented midfielder evolve from a really good to one of the world’s great players
And finally there’s the superb, tireless, Benzema; derided by many who know nothing about what he brings to the side, and the worthy scorer of the goal that finished the match as a contest.
As a striker, who sometimes ends up playing as a number ten almost as a servant to a team full of people ready to grab the goals and the limelight, nobody deserved the goal and the glory more than the Frenchman.
