Looking forward to the 2013-14 Barcelona season
Barcelona will have the two Latin American superstars in their squad this season
Clive Tyldesley (ITV Commentator):
“Fantastic from Messi, again and again. Nani makes a challenge, Carrick tidies up Busquets though, Villaaaaa…!!! *Pause* Champion football from Barcelona. David Villa, Spain’s leading international goalscorer scores ‘the’ most important goal of his career! Manchester United need a Nou Camp miracle now.. *Sir Alex Ferguson watching furiously* They gave the ball to Barcelona, he will be furious about that. But you got to admire the skill and the finish.”
Andy Townsend (ITV Commentator):
“Well you can have the best laid players Clive to try and deal with these guys but sometimes you have to hold your hands up and admire what you are up against and just admit what they have too much, that the quality they have in their ranks and their finishing is too good!”
Many would scratch their heads about what I’ve scribbled above. Barca fans, you should have got it by now.
For the one’s who didn’t, let me ask you, do you remember the words blurted out, sometimes screamed by the commentator when your favorite club, the club you support with such passion scored the winning goal? Well these were the words I can’t possibly forget, at least for this lifetime.
So I decided on trying to analyse “El Problema” about my favorite team. But first let’s take a small detour..
The name of the post suggests something else but before getting into that I would like to tell you some interesting, less known facts. The word ‘historical’ would be too dramatic here, but yes these are from the past.
Now for starters. The word “tiki-taka football” which we all have tried to imitate (& failed) while playing on streets or with our respective teams was originally popularized by a Spanish broadcaster ‘Andres Montes’ during the FIFA World Cup 2006 quoting, ”Estamos tocando tiki taka, tiki taka”.
Secondly, The great FC Barcelona was founded by a Swiss soccer enthusiast, Joan Gamper in 1899. Yes, even I raised my eyebrows. And now the funny one would be the word “Cules”.
All Barca fans must have used this word once which actually means ”Ass” in Catalan (A Spanish language spoken in Barcelona). So my advice to Barca fans would be to think twice before you use this word.
Now I should really get to the point before you guys start to move your mouse towards the upper right end of the page.
We all know Barcelona’s exploits and their dominance over world football for the past few years. Though some would argue with the words ”past few years” as we all saw Barcelona were ousted, outclassed & out-muscled last season through the hands of a very hard working & technically brilliant Bayern Munich side. But I must say that I am a believer, and I believe that this is not the end of an era.
So how does Barcelona shape up for the upcoming season? Has it rolled up its sleeves and is raring to go or is the team nervous (I say nervous because of the gigantic expectations on their shoulder’s this season).
There are five things we could know about Barcelona this season..
1. The Known Knowns
This must be the most predictable and funny part about Barcelona this season.
We know Lionel Messi is going to score 50+ again. Inevitable!
We know Neymar is going to be a crowd favorite. Why? Good question. Three quick reasons. One, because he is Brazilian, two he is Brazilian and three, easy guess, he is from Brazil.
I could make a better movie than Twilight to portray the love story of the Blaugrana fans and Brazilian players. It is inherent. Match made in heaven. We know Xavi is going to pass and pass and pass. No disrespect to the legend though. And finally, we know Andres Iniesta is going to cast his magic spells on opposition defenses.
2. The Known Unknowns
Confused? These are those things that we know we don’t know.
As the legendary Real Madrid striker, Raul quoted, “Money can buy you talent but not trophies.”
Barcelona have spent millions on Neymar but the question is can Messi-Neymar share the same platform. Could we see the beautiful geometrical three dimensional shapes (that’s the way they move, creating shapes), running to the corner flag together and helping with the hamstring problems or are we going to see clash of egos between two of the world’s best players (like we saw between Messi and Zlatan Ibrahimovic).
That sums up for the negative part of it. We should always see the brighter side, shouldn’t we? If these two could gel, Barcelona would have the most fearful attacking lineup on the planet. I can even hear the commentary in my ears. The defender’s will have to play a game of ”Pick the Poison.”
Apart from the above problem Barcelona have some other solved and unsolved situations here and there.
One of them is the defense. Last season, this defense was falling down like a house of cards. They certainly need to bolster their defense to get back to the pinnacle of world football.
Another problem I assume is with the recently European Under-21 champion Thiago Alcantara. We all know he is good, damn he is actually very good. Seems to be a hybrid created from Xavi and Iniesta. His decision will certainly affect the team in the long run.
Carlos Puyol, is he a ‘Fallen Angel’? Glad you asked. Even I don’t have an answer for this one. But I certainly wouldn’t place my bets on him. I think it’s done and dusted.
A player should always retire in his glory days. There also other problems with player’s like Javier Macherano, Alex Song and Alexis Sanchez who haven’t been a total fit, and youngsters like Christian Tello and Marc Bartra, who will get much lesser game time due to the new signings.