football test

Game: Tenerife - Barcelona
Competition: La Liga
By: Ramzi

Well, it’s a five Zero after all. I don’t mean the result, but more the performance that used to be a five stars performance, declined to five Zeros. There was no excuse for this one. I usually start by giving cridet for the opponent when we play bad. This time we forced Tenerife to play good. It’s not that they parked the bus and counter attacked efficiently. Its not that they were putting more pressure on us than we can handle. It’s a tactical bug and careless performance that invited Tenerife to score. They were generous enough not to do so. And Valdes had to deal with the rest.

First thing first, the selection: Pep started Alves, Marques, Puyol, Maxwell, Busquets, Iniesta, Xavi, Messi, Bojan, and Henry. He decided to keep Pedro out both for the emotional aspect that may complicate his game, and to save him for the cup battle. Fair enough.

I said it before and I say it now, Maxwell and Alves can play together in one condition: Having two players who can play as Holding midfielders, and better if one of them can even play as a Center back. Two of the following three: Yaya, Keita, and Busquets. Or in such a complicated situation like the one we have now with Keita and Yaya unavailable, we need to have a Marquez/Chegrnskiy/Pique holding midfielder with Busquets. That was not the case here, and probably because we believed that our midfielders and forwards can squeeze the opponent in its own half easing up the pressure from the defense department. When we failed to do so, our defensive bug exposed us to the extreme.





This game proved that having both Alves and Maxwell in the same selection will not guarantee more offense flair if they were not well covered defense wise. It was weird to watch the two guys in the first half both opening on the flanks almost approaching the half line, but that’s it. None of them dared to go more forward as they both felt insecure and uncovered. And with Messi playing as a ten in the center more than the flank, we became completely out of any ideas. It took us half an hour till Alves had his "What the Hell" reaction and started running forward without thinking about what Maxwell is doing at the mean time.

What added a mess to the mess is that defense duo, Beside sloppy clearance, and bad positioning and marking,even failed to set the offside trap right. Which made the team more and more exposed.

What added the mess to the mess is Busquets situation in an exposed area where his three attributes where there is still a room for improvement offered him no favour:

- Picking his battles instead of trying to do THE DEFERENCE in each and every play he contribute in.
- Deciding when he has to be a Busquets who bark after the ball all over the place and when its better to position himself where he can create a cover and limit the collective mess that’s similar to what we had in this game.
- He needs to stop seeking a foul when he doesn’t have a broken bone. His bad reputation in that matter is not helping him with the referees at the moment. Even when he is kicked he barely get the call. Unfair, but he has to deal with it.

What added a mess to the mess was Xavi performance in this game where he showed how dearly he needs a rest. For the first time since ever, he was more a liability in some periods of the game than an added value. Never thought I will live till it happens.

What added a mess to the mess was the offense unwillingness to put pressure on the opponent. I can understand that Pep demanded less effort and better result to save energy for the following game. But when things turned ugly, they had to get themselves back to business. Didn’t happen.

The result was a very poor first half, especially the first 25 minutes:


Minute 2:39 Marquez Pass to Messi, Intercepted causing a counter and –luckily- a shot over the bar.

Minute 3:59 Busquets pass to Xavi who decided to play easy to get waiting the ball that was intercepted and generated a dangerous counter. (Oh if anyone think its Busquets fault, jump to minute 20:28 watch it and be as critical).

Minute 6:48 another bad play by Marquez generating a counter with both Puyol and Alves unacceptably covering the offside. Another dangerous counter.

Minute 12:07 Tenerife exchanging passes on the left with Maxwell and Puyol defending. Tererife cross the ball to the box where both Alves and Marquez left the player between them unchecked. The player originally ran away from Xavi marking. Luckily, the guy decided to give us another chance.

Minute 20:28 Iniesta pass the ball to Xavi, intercepted generating a counter that forced Marquez to commit a foul on the edge of the box earning a yellow card. Tenerife Free kick lacked quality.

Minute 23:08 Xavi again fail to control an easy ball that passed under his foot to a Tenerife player who initiated another counter, then a cross that Puyol headed to a Tenerife player on the edge of the box who generously shoot it wide.

Minute 24:40 Tenerife Attack from the left cross to a guy left unchecked in the box by Puyol and Marquez. Again, the guy failed to get advantage of an easy opportunity.

Minute 25:35 Bad pass by Busquets intercepted and played to a Tenerife player who was in an offside Position.

After scoring a goal, Tenerife went in a comma for the rest of the first half. So we had it easier to finish the first 45 minutes without getting conceded.

In the second half, we were a bit better and they were a bit worse. Busquets kept doing the good offense job he was doing in the first half, but this time with Xavi covering behind him when he moves forward, which was not the case in the first half. Talking about Xavi, Pep did a very good tactical modification for the second half where Xavi became more a midfield assistant. Assisting Iniesta and covering Busquets. The two young players where the actual playmaker for the team in this game. If you watch all the goals scored, Busquets was in the making of almost each and every one of them. Iniesta took the responsibilities Xavi usually handle and the ship started to sail more smoothly. Alves became more daring offense wise getting advantage of Tenerife moral decline after getting conceded. Though we must not forget that even in the second half, the team was far from perfection both offense wise and defense wise where we still had the unpleasant moments like Puyol passing the ball to the opponent in front of his goal.

In this game Bojan showed again where he can perform best. Every time he had the chance to do the Henry job he did great. This game will be an important boost for his form if Pep selects him more often in the coming weeks. He is like a poisoned mushroom with beautiful looks, you will never predict that this innocence is that fatal, but it is.

In this game Maxwell showed why he is not getting lot of starting opportunities this season. I’ve been following this guy even since his days at Ajax. He is an extremely talented player with lot of potentials. I hope his unsatisfying performance is just a temporary lack of form. Not a career decline. It will be a shame.
In this game Valdes proved he is the chosen one for Barcelona.

In this game, we saw how important Keita is for this team. We missed him dearly in this game for being the best midfielder we have to assist the holding midfielder in the moments of trouble. The balance he creates could only be seen when he is not there, more than when he is.

In this game Messi showed why he is hands down the most talented player in the world at the moment. Putting Ronaldinho aside, as he intentionally damaged his own talent.

In this game Henry showed that even when he is not at his best –and he is not- he still can create an offense reference that’s needed to make his teammates life easier. We’ve seen the team performance when we played without both Henry and Ibra, and we’ve seen the team against Tenerife. Even when he doesn’t deliver a world class performance, it’s enough for Henry to be an offense landmark for his teammates to recognize the direction to the net. Do not underestimate that value.

In this game we learned some more lessons, hopefully. Barcelona adds three points to their Liga account, and march forward. Next, Sevilla battle. In the Sevilla game Review I mentioned that CDR is the Junk title for us this season. Yet, its easy to predict that Pep will still give it a try, especially now that Valencia may not be our opponent if we pass Sevilla.