A funny thing happened in the aftermath of Barcelona's 3-1 (in reality, 2-1) win over Juventus in the Champions League Final - a compelling, well played game that while definitely going to the better team, could have fairly easily gone to Juventus without too much complaint. In the middle of extolling Barcelona's win, I heard the Fox Soccer team say that this could be the greatest collection of talent ever on a team - something I heard about Barclona 4-5 years ago. And in a way, they are right. And Barcelona became that by embracing what they couldn't do and what they failed to beat. Soccer, more than any other sport, loves to call teams teh greatest of all time, but through the way that title has passed along hot-potato style from team to team in recent years and ended up back with Barcelona shows both how tenuous that title is, and how odd it is that Barcelona has re-acheived it.
In the 2010-11 season, Barcelona could have made their claim as the best single-season team of all time. They romped through La Liga, losing just two games, scoring 114 goals and conceding 29. They won the Champions League going away, never seriously challenged apart from one badly-timed 2nd yellow against Arsenal, a tie they likely would have won anyway. Messi wasn't yet 'Messi', but that was the height of the Guardiola era Barcelona. Xavi and Iniesta were still brilliant. Players like Pedro and Alexis had their best seasons. The team was amazing. By record, better than this years team. They were far and away the best team in the world, likely the best team ever. And then it just ended.
They didn't win La Liga the following year (Mourinho's Real Madrid team did), and crashed out of the Champions League losing to Chelsea 2-3 on aggregate. The following year, they took back La Liga in a down year for the league, but were humiliated losing 0-7 on aggregate to Bayern Munich in the Champions League Semifinal. That loss is the first turning point.
Up through that tie, Barcelona was driving more and more into the all-possession skid, and turning the team more and more into one that needed Lionel Messi to be his best self to win. Messi was not his best self against Chelsea and they lost. He was playing at 50% against Bayern, and they were demolished. The team had peaked. There was a new 'best team in the world' and that was Bayern Munich.
That Munich team went on to win the Champions League, finally winning after being runners up in 2010 and 2012. They had the ability to play possession, but they were deadly on the counter. They were strong everywhere, a perfect 11 that blended singular talents (Robben, Lahm) with steely determination (Muller, Schweinsteiger), and excellent role players (Ribery, Mandzukic, Neuer). They were the top team, with the physicality and speed to swallow Barcelona's possession machine. Of course, Pep Guardiola was about to take over the Munich squad the following year.
He didn't change them into Barcelona, but definitely limited their countering and focused on possession. Bayern was too talented for it not to work, but in the Champions League semifinal, they ran up against a team who did to them what they did to Barcelona, defended and countered them to death. This time it was them being humiliated, losing 0-5 on aggregate to Real Madrid. It was this win for Madrid that swung the 'best team in the world label' over to the Bernabeu.
Real Madrid ended the 2013-14 season with the Champions League title, finally winning 'La Decima', and started the 14-15 season as clearly the best team in the world. They won 22 straight games in all competitions. Opened up a 6-point lead on Barcelona in Janaury in La Liga, and was flying in the Champions League. Then injury struck. Carlo Ancelotti did a great job fitting a lot of great players in a structure that worked, but impulse buys James Rodriguez and Toni Kroos took some of the defensive proficiency away, and injuries ruined their dominance. They eventually crashed out to Juventus in the semifinal, lost La Liga by two points, and Barcelona took back over pole position.
How did Barcelona take it back? By shedding away some of the possession tactics that ruled their first spell on top of world football, and moving slightly towards with Bayern and Real Madrid were able to do during their seasons on top: counter with speed and excellent skill. But forget tactics, it comes down to personnel.
Barcelona loves to tout La Masia, and for good reason. That 2010-11 super team was built basically off of homegrown talent. However, the reason Barcelona lays claim to 'Best Team in the World' today is because of their checkbook. Getting Neymar last year, and doing underhanded business dealings to do so, was step 1. Getting Luis Suarez after Liverpool soured on 'the biter' was step two. Barcelona loves to tout itself as more than a club, but their resurgence was helped by being just another club with a big bank account. 2010-11 was the start of a period where Barcelona grew increasingly dependent on Lionel Messi, as striker after striker failed to adjust to Barcelona's tiki-taka system, and the core grew older. When bringing in Neymar and Suarez, they stopped adapting to Tiki-Taka, let them play as we saw, and we get what we got.
The best example was against Bayern Munich. Munich, coached by Guardiola moved towards the Barcelona style, while Barcelona moved towards Munich's style. The results was a semifinal that emulated a lot to the 7-0 thrashing. It wasn't as one-sided, but Barcelona swallowed up an injured Munich team and destroyed them.
In the final, we saw what makes Barcelona so scary right now. On the first goal, it was right out of 2010-11 Barcelona, slow build up, a looping Messi pass, great off-the-ball movement, beautiful passing, and a good finish. The second goal was a counter, against the run of play, with Messi driving towards and Suarez backing him up for a tap-in. It was a goal that likely wouldn't be scored that was in 2013. It was scored that way on Saturday, and it made Barcelona champions.
Barcelona is squarely the best team in the world, but that is always a tenuous title. More teams have more money now than they did in Barca's run from 2009-12. To be honest, if not for injuries, Real Madrid may yet have won La Liga, Counter to that, Barcelona had wonderful injury luck, with none of the top three (or even top five if you include Iniesta and Rakitic) were injured. With some club exits planned and a transfer ban in effect, there is a chance that if Barcelona has normal injury luck next year they won't be nearly as deep. Overall, there is a reason why no team has repeated as Champions League winner. Both Bayern Munich and Real Madrid seemed like good bets to break that, but both lost. Let's see if Barcelona can, and do so by continuing to adapt to the superb talent they have and not be adapting the talent to their system.
In the 2010-11 season, Barcelona could have made their claim as the best single-season team of all time. They romped through La Liga, losing just two games, scoring 114 goals and conceding 29. They won the Champions League going away, never seriously challenged apart from one badly-timed 2nd yellow against Arsenal, a tie they likely would have won anyway. Messi wasn't yet 'Messi', but that was the height of the Guardiola era Barcelona. Xavi and Iniesta were still brilliant. Players like Pedro and Alexis had their best seasons. The team was amazing. By record, better than this years team. They were far and away the best team in the world, likely the best team ever. And then it just ended.
They didn't win La Liga the following year (Mourinho's Real Madrid team did), and crashed out of the Champions League losing to Chelsea 2-3 on aggregate. The following year, they took back La Liga in a down year for the league, but were humiliated losing 0-7 on aggregate to Bayern Munich in the Champions League Semifinal. That loss is the first turning point.
Up through that tie, Barcelona was driving more and more into the all-possession skid, and turning the team more and more into one that needed Lionel Messi to be his best self to win. Messi was not his best self against Chelsea and they lost. He was playing at 50% against Bayern, and they were demolished. The team had peaked. There was a new 'best team in the world' and that was Bayern Munich.
That Munich team went on to win the Champions League, finally winning after being runners up in 2010 and 2012. They had the ability to play possession, but they were deadly on the counter. They were strong everywhere, a perfect 11 that blended singular talents (Robben, Lahm) with steely determination (Muller, Schweinsteiger), and excellent role players (Ribery, Mandzukic, Neuer). They were the top team, with the physicality and speed to swallow Barcelona's possession machine. Of course, Pep Guardiola was about to take over the Munich squad the following year.
He didn't change them into Barcelona, but definitely limited their countering and focused on possession. Bayern was too talented for it not to work, but in the Champions League semifinal, they ran up against a team who did to them what they did to Barcelona, defended and countered them to death. This time it was them being humiliated, losing 0-5 on aggregate to Real Madrid. It was this win for Madrid that swung the 'best team in the world label' over to the Bernabeu.
Real Madrid ended the 2013-14 season with the Champions League title, finally winning 'La Decima', and started the 14-15 season as clearly the best team in the world. They won 22 straight games in all competitions. Opened up a 6-point lead on Barcelona in Janaury in La Liga, and was flying in the Champions League. Then injury struck. Carlo Ancelotti did a great job fitting a lot of great players in a structure that worked, but impulse buys James Rodriguez and Toni Kroos took some of the defensive proficiency away, and injuries ruined their dominance. They eventually crashed out to Juventus in the semifinal, lost La Liga by two points, and Barcelona took back over pole position.
How did Barcelona take it back? By shedding away some of the possession tactics that ruled their first spell on top of world football, and moving slightly towards with Bayern and Real Madrid were able to do during their seasons on top: counter with speed and excellent skill. But forget tactics, it comes down to personnel.
Barcelona loves to tout La Masia, and for good reason. That 2010-11 super team was built basically off of homegrown talent. However, the reason Barcelona lays claim to 'Best Team in the World' today is because of their checkbook. Getting Neymar last year, and doing underhanded business dealings to do so, was step 1. Getting Luis Suarez after Liverpool soured on 'the biter' was step two. Barcelona loves to tout itself as more than a club, but their resurgence was helped by being just another club with a big bank account. 2010-11 was the start of a period where Barcelona grew increasingly dependent on Lionel Messi, as striker after striker failed to adjust to Barcelona's tiki-taka system, and the core grew older. When bringing in Neymar and Suarez, they stopped adapting to Tiki-Taka, let them play as we saw, and we get what we got.
The best example was against Bayern Munich. Munich, coached by Guardiola moved towards the Barcelona style, while Barcelona moved towards Munich's style. The results was a semifinal that emulated a lot to the 7-0 thrashing. It wasn't as one-sided, but Barcelona swallowed up an injured Munich team and destroyed them.
In the final, we saw what makes Barcelona so scary right now. On the first goal, it was right out of 2010-11 Barcelona, slow build up, a looping Messi pass, great off-the-ball movement, beautiful passing, and a good finish. The second goal was a counter, against the run of play, with Messi driving towards and Suarez backing him up for a tap-in. It was a goal that likely wouldn't be scored that was in 2013. It was scored that way on Saturday, and it made Barcelona champions.
Barcelona is squarely the best team in the world, but that is always a tenuous title. More teams have more money now than they did in Barca's run from 2009-12. To be honest, if not for injuries, Real Madrid may yet have won La Liga, Counter to that, Barcelona had wonderful injury luck, with none of the top three (or even top five if you include Iniesta and Rakitic) were injured. With some club exits planned and a transfer ban in effect, there is a chance that if Barcelona has normal injury luck next year they won't be nearly as deep. Overall, there is a reason why no team has repeated as Champions League winner. Both Bayern Munich and Real Madrid seemed like good bets to break that, but both lost. Let's see if Barcelona can, and do so by continuing to adapt to the superb talent they have and not be adapting the talent to their system.
