Sure, who else but the guy named Lionel Messi – albeit diminutive in physique but an Olympian deity in football stature, not unlike solitary Atlas bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders – was there all along when the Barcelona of today lost 1-4 against Rome, 0-4 against Liverpool and also in the horrendous 2-8 thumping by Bayern Munich?
The single constant throughout all of those recent tumultuous events – factoring in glorious wins, dismal losses, and the good, the bad and the ugly – has indubitably been Messi being quintessentially the only beam of light radiating hope in a long, abysmally-dark tunnel that the Catalans have somehow been plunged headlong into courtesy of the gross mismanagement of the Blaugrana by a totally ineffectual, bungling Board led by a self-glorifying, pompous president who’s since been forced to relegate himself by the sanctions of public opinion.
Naturally and expectedly, all of the above-mentioned will run counter to the popular, headlines-selling narrative of the often myopic global media who will tell you that the Barca icon and talisman is the one who’s gone feeble in the knees, figuratively and literally, as he begins to enter the beginning of his twilight years.
Oh, his failures are all becoming only too inevitable and glaringly noticeable, they would say – failure in captaining the team, at leading the frontlines and failing to win it all by himself, unlike in his earlier most glorious years! Simply because these are essentially what he’s been doing for so many years now. And what the heck, he’s supposed to continue doing all this as long as he’s still in the thick of things at Camp Nou – winning it all by himself. No less.
It doesn’t take a football tactical genius with the nous and savvy to realize, nor does it take an aficionado with keen, hawk-like eyes, to discern that this Barcelona team is but a pale shadow of its former self.
Despite whatever changes current boss Ronald Koeman may have made to the structure of the squad pertaining to both the personnel and the all-important attitude, it’s all looking more like an indistinguishable, homogeneous mess – Messi not included, of course.
The Blaugranas have long been dispossessed of any clear defensive strategies, now obviously lacking compactness and match sharpness. Their pressing although marginally improved, is still exploitable, and to a large extent, ineffective as the even the shots on target haven’t found the back of the net unlike before.
Alarming as that might sound, bigger issues surface in attack.
Barcelona have always been feared by even their greatest rivals as the team that would rather riddle opposing defenses with a torrential hail of bullet holes in an open game of football than cudgel tyem into meek submission with their stubborn defensive walls. Sadly these days, their once-dreaded arsenal seems to be manned by one lone figure – Messi, the last man standing, with the other two of his machinegun-toting bandoleros, Neymar and Luis Suarez, having ridden off on their magnificent steeds into the distant horizon.
‘Messidependencia‘ is a term that doesn’t require any elucidation for Cules but these days, it is downright worrying for even the most hardcore Camp Nou diehards that even though the likes of Antoine Griezmann, Philippe Coutinho and Frenkie de Jong and other mortals – whose feet at best plod the terra firma – are in the team, unlike that ‘otherworldly alien’ who’s been gliding and weaving his way through his own ethereal football pitches for close to two decades, Barcelona clearly and scarily do not have much else to show for.
That much was painfully obvious in the Catalans’ much-touted Champions League clash against Juventus at the Camp Nou featuring the world’s current two best footballers and long-time rivals. Of course, Cristiano Ronaldo the penultimate athlete was subsequently handed the plaudits for his two penalty kick goals but again it was undeniably Messi the extraterrestrial who ran the show on the night.
Not only that but he was also the only proactive player on the pitch apart from Riqui Puig in the latter stages of the game.
It was none other than Messi who is credited for taking all of Barcelona’s shots on target, as also it was him who tried to conjure rabbits out of an almost empty hat, as always. Even Houdini needed the services of able assistants privy to the mystifying, dark secrets of sorcery performed by the master Wizard. Who else can Barcelona count on as always to somehow mount an almost insurmountable comeback when push comes to shove? Lionel Messi, of course! Only that these days, after the dismantling of the MSN Tres Amigos, it would most certainly be through him and him alone.
Come on, for crying out loud – is this fair at all to Senor Messi at this juncture in his glorious playing career?
Football is a team game and not a game of self-glory, unlike snooker, like one renowned pundit recently posited. And, based on that fundamental understanding, as long as it’s all down to only one lone hombre pulling all the weight, Barcelona ain’t going nowhere. Not as long as it continues to be ‘One For All’ instead of rightfully ‘All For One’ (the ‘One’ being the Club, obviously).
Messi may have been the Peter Pan in all of football history ever but even this enchanting fairy tale, elfish character with his devil-may-care heroics can’t outfly the winged stallions of Time beginning to swoop in from the blue azures to eventually overtake him one day in the not too distant future. And plain football-speak, it’s infinitely much easier to defend against one man than it is to defend against 10 of them. Against Tuesday’s tete-a-tete with Juventus, Barcelona kept recycling possession until Messi had no alternatives available except to get creative. The ball was suddenly moving faster, finally reaching dangerous areas – yet, alas, the rest of the cavalry were missing.
Each and every time they somehow managed to gather in a position of vantage to actually threaten supervillain ‘Gigi’ Buffon, looming larger-than-life as always between the posts, it was all courtesy of the diminutive Argentine’s tireless. Perhaps the outcome would’ve been smashing on a different night, where at least a couple of those shots would’ve smashed the inside of the net but this time even the fleet-footed, precise Messi of not too long ago again acutely felt the lack of inspiration and physical support of his band of not-so-merry men. Otherwise it’d be a totally different narrative we would be extemporizing on now.
Perhaps it’s actually a good thing after all, in deeper contemplation, that even Messi’s numerous shots on target weren’t converted that night. After all, this certainly wasn’t the definitive game that suddenly exposed all of Barcelona’s flaws and frailties, players and coach included. The widening cracks on the walls were clear for all to see even way before the start of the 2020/21 campaign, and everybody’s favorite handyman Messi peppering over the cracks would only serve to further exacerbate the dilemma
Enough of Messi alone trying to prolong the inevitable and potentially camouflage a problem that is becoming too big for one individual to handle. Koeman, for all that he is trying to bend over backwards to achieve, has even at this early juncture been simply not up to the task.
At the end of another recurrent, gloomy Barcelona day, the defeat against Juventus served the purpose of telling us more of what we already know – Barcelona are still heavily and almost solely relying on Messi to solve all of their problems, perpetuating an unending, futile cycle.
We’ve all heard enough of the unending promises waxing lyrical about new, ambitious, sporting projects, of new aspiring, wannabe presidents clamoring about bringing heaven to hell with their propagandistic campaigns, and so on and so forth.
To cut to the chase, the first order of business should be to create a functional team with adequate, sustainable talents that can play as one with Messi rather than him playing all out for them. He has already done much more than he had been expected to for too long.
The clock is still ticking.
Hopefully it isn’t a time bomb waiting to detonate.