It was truly a spectacle for sore eyes as Barcelona desperately sent more than 50 crosses into the area trying to break through the Granada defense in its Holy Grail-like search for a goal. Clearly, and sadly for the Blaugranas, there was none of Barcelona’s famous trademark “tiki taka” – passing the ball around patiently until the right opening is found near the opponents’ goal – this time around in the game on Monday.
The desperation rose to an alarming level bordering on the ludicrous when central defenders Gerard Piqué and Ronald Araújo donned invisible Messi boots and played the final minutes as Barca’s latest strikers, with hardly any tactical nous and organization in play as the team pressed forward any which way they could just to try to avoid defeat at all costs. Thankfully, in the nick of time, the entire shambolic display was brought to a final halt after Araújo managed to scramble a point for Barcelona thanks to a 90th-minute equalizer that saved the day for the team, but probably not the coach.
Needless to say, the team was boisterously jeered and heckled by the majority of the 27,000 Blaugrana faithful at Camp Nou Stadium after the final whistle, and it didn’t take long before the ballistic missiles were launched in the direction of Barca boss Ronald Koeman, and most deservingly, too, for haphazardly relinquishing the club’s traditional passing game and resorting to desperate tactics to save the day.
“What kind of Barcelona is this?” demanded the front-page headline of the sports daily Marca as the Spanish football citizenry tried to make some sense out of the lunacy they had witnessed earlier in the Barcelona circus act.
Suffice it to say that the 54 crosses made on Monday were the second highest for Barcelona in a league game since as far back as 2005-06, according to stats by OptaJose. That was the first full season featuring Lionel Messi with the main team, with the Argentine wizard as the commander of the tiki-taka style for nearly two decades.
“Barcelona is not what it used to be eight years ago,” was the pathetic excuse that Koeman scraped up in trying to parry the blow, a clear sign of a desperado coming increasingly under pressure at the helm of the Catalan club, whose implosion apparently hasn’t reached its full impact yet, judging from the scenes beginning to unfold alarmingly now after the departure of their Argentine talisman and skipper in the summer.
Monday’s fiasco against a lowly Granada side ending with a drab draw for the once-mighty Blaugranas came less than a week after the boys suffered a demoralizing 3-0 thrashing, again from Bayern Munich at Camp Nou to begin its campaign in the Champions League.
Koeman, in his own defense, said “tiki taki,” as he referred to it in the news conference after the game against Granada, was not done yet while also proferring the convenient excuse that he can’t get his team to play that way with several players being injured and out of action.
“It depends on the players we have available. Look at the squad list we had. We did what we could do. There were no players for the tiki taki,” he said. “We want to play our style, but if a match requires a change, we have to make that change. If we have to make crosses, so be it.”
The Dutchman who took over from Quique Setien said he was forced to improvise because he is missing some key players who could be helping with their individual talent, including Ansu Fati and Ousmane Dembélé.
“With Ansu and Dembélé in the team, things are different,” he said. “But they are not available and we have to find alternatives.”
Among the other players currently nursing injuries are Jordi Alba – another veteran well-versed with the tiki-taka – and youngster Pedri González.
Not surprisingly, Koeman had stated after the loss to Bayern that Barcelona is facing a new reality (what a revelation!) following Messi’s departure to Paris Saint-Germain. The coach has resorted to using several youngsters in the squad, with 17-year-old Gavi again making an appearance on Monday and setting up Araújo’s last-minute equalizer. Yusuf Demir, 18, was a starter at Camp Nou.
The draw against winless Granada left Barcelona in seventh place, five points behind leader Real Madrid with a game in hand. Barcelona’s next league match is on Thursday at Cádiz.
Let’s see what other excuses the former Everton and Southampton boss comes up with this time if his team again fails to deliver the goods.