A Football Report

By Max Grieve

Pep Guardiola’s first league match, away at Numancia, was confusing in its lessons. Barcelona boasted 70 per cent of the possession, and had 26 shots – two of which smacked against the woodwork – but lost; Mario Martínez Rubio, simply Mario, scoring in Eric Abidal’s absence at the far post. 

“We played badly,” admitted Guardiola. “We were undisciplined and people were not doing their jobs. You have to open the pitch when the opposition plays with 10 behind the ball and we did not do that. We did not attack well. It was our own fault, but we can correct the errors.”

A reaction to an unfortunate performance, not to take anything from Numanica, the Catalan media were up in arms – they usually are, such is their fanaticism. Johan Cruyff, in his column for El Periódico, was more patient. “I don’t know which game you saw, but I saw one of the best Barça performances in years. Football-wise, Barça were of the best. Positionally excellent, moving the ball with speed and precision, and pressing well. You draw your conclusions but, to me, this season looks very, and I mean very, good.” 

Superlatives fail. Barcelona won the league, the Copa del Rey, and the Champions League. The latter was breath-taking: deprived of Dani Alves due to the UEFA rules that threaten this year’s final, Puyol was indomitable at right-back, Xavi masterful in the midfield, and Messi supreme in attack. Alex Ferguson’s face was drained of its characteristic purple hue, and Pep Guardiola lifted the European Cup. At the beginning of the next season, Barcelona collected the UEFA Super Cup, the Club World Cup, and the Supercopa de España. In little over a year, Guardiola had won everything there was to be had in Spanish and European football. That he stayed for a further three seasons is testament to his will to succeed, and should serve as a lesson to those who feel wronged by his leaving.

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By Darshan Joshi

One week, two alleged stamps. Both assailants bad-boys of their clubs’ cities, further apart in distance than footballing heritage and seemingly now closer yet in terms of notoriety. One incident exponentially more temerarious than the other, and thus rightly so – relatively speaking –, one man went unpunished, and the other supplied with a four-match decapitation. Only, if just one of the two crime scenes were to be punished retrospectively, it was the wrong one left exonerated.

Mario Balotelli may cast more than an envious gaze at the Spanish footballing authorities, much as the English do those shores with an understandable predilection for sunnier days on a golden beach. The decision to deplete Pepe of a suspension for an ostentatious trampling on the hand of Lionel Messi was absurd. Perhaps the powers-that-be took into account, unfairly, Messi’s status as The Second Coming of Diego Maradona – karmic law suggests an equal and opposite reaction to every action – and Pepe was thus the purveyor of retrospective punishment too, of a sort. Only, Messi isn’t Maradona, and so his Hand isn’t exactly His Hand.

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By Eric Beard

“Pelé doesn’t know sh*t.”

That was Sid Lowe’s response to James Richardson’s teasing statement on The Guardian’s Football Weekly Podcast. Richardson, of course, was referencing Pelé’s opinion that Neymar is better than Lionel Messi. With Pelé getting up there in age, Sid might be on to something. But that’s neither here nor there. The fact is that Neymar couldn’t do sh*t to stop Barcelona from winning the Club World Cup.

Player comparisons are far too often full of intangibles that draw upon the weak base of power that language possesses. Language is expected to casually unveil a dramatic truth when poetically expressed. However, according to Pep Guardiola, “there are no adjectives” to describe Messi. Language is sh*t next to Messi.Words are sh*t, next to a 24-year-old from Rosario. He is “extraordinary” in dozens of matches every year, and yet his brilliance is invariably unique from one match to another. But if you describe dribbling nine players and chipping the keeper with the same superlative as a hat-trick at the Bernabeu, you need not fear the wrath of Señor Guardiola.

Rather, Pep should understand the deficiencies of human linguistics. But this is not about Messi. It’s not about Neymar, either. The question we’re faced with is the power of an individual, even a phenomenon. Before we go any further, let’s recognize that “phenomenon” is a word football fans can comprehend and associate with Neymar and Messi. But let’s also recognize that it’s a word that doesn’t mean sh*t in defining Neymar or Messi. The subjectivity of definition is clouded by the illusion, the false formation of a collective consciousness. If this were the case, if we could adequately identify the essence of brilliance of another through millions of opinions, then we would not be left speechless listening to Messi being described as a “wonderful salmon [rising] out of the stream.”

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