Plunged into uncertainty, not just football, but the world, has had the fixtures removed from underneath its feet. From elite managers to amateur analysts, every level of the game is engaging with a heightened degree of guess work. With football back across most of the continent, the Champions League looks to be the most adulterated competition. Single one-off ties mean the safety-net of a second-leg no longer exists. The elite competition, with growing infrequency, does produce surprising winners. Even then the more fancied sides are rarely the best team in the competition. Justice is that much less likely to be done this year. In this new format, being a long way from the best team on the continent, Barcelona might be a little closer to their 5-year-long obsession.
There are still a few variables in play. Nobody quite knows whether the fans will be there; distanced, reduced, or just local. A betting man would make money on the dignitaries attending before anyone else, such is the position of importance they afford themselves in the modern game. And for all the damage that dignitaries (their own) have done to Barcelona in recent years, they are not loud. What fans do return, if any, will not do so in droves. They will not be the partisan, voracious cauldrons they have visited in Rome or Turin or Liverpool.
And that is exactly the thing which has hurt this proud old brawler most. Now with more reputation than repertoire, the conditions need to be perfect. It won’t be one-off ties at the Camp Nou, but in prospect, they are a lot smoother than visiting cities the opponent knows better. Two legs have proved too much for Barcelona, mentally and perhaps physically too. Despite their inadequacies travelling, the Blaugrana has at least shown the ability to triumph in a single game over some of the best in Europe. While they lost the match, their finest performance of the season came at a neutral ground in the Spanish Super Cup. Away from the figurative noise in Spain, away from the literal noise of a crowd.
By the time the domestic affairs finish, Quique Setién’s side will have been back in action for eight weeks. When they reach the end of the grueling schedule, they will have reached something like match sharpness. Somewhat ironically, their most persistent issue under Setién stands the most chance of being rectified when the campaign is lost. At their current rate of ineffectiveness, they may well have a couple matches spare, of what are normally melancholy processions to complete.
In this unique case, they will essentially be tournament friendlies. Valuable pre-Champions League preparation time for a technical team that has had precious little of it to implement changes. The pressure will be all-consuming, having given up the league crown for only the fourth time in the last twelve years. Yet without needing results, with the ability to rest players, the focus can shift to the system. Carrying it out effectively and actively trying to find solutions rather than simply nursing an ageing side through to the next match.
To date, the opportunity for Setién to impose any of himself has been mere fantasy due to the schedule. The preceding weeks before the restart will have been almost exclusively devoted to helping the players arrive at the first match with some semblance of the desired physical shape. So high is the premium on results that it seems a long time since anyone looked too closely at the process. Logic concludes that any period of adaptation to new concepts and variations will inevitably involve an element of risk result-wise. A check that until now, neither Valverde nor Setién has been able to cash.
With three weeks available between the finale of La Liga and the beginning of the Lisbon tournament, Barcelona can enclose themselves in concentración. In Spanish, a description of a gathering or a meeting of the players, sometimes in isolation, usually in preparation for the upcoming tournament. In English, it is exactly what the Blaugrana needs. Having theoretically reached match-fitness, they will have time to rest and prepare before they summon on their remaining reserves.
Other European leagues, Serie A (one week), the Bundesliga (six weeks), Ligue 1 (twenty-one weeks), face gaps which make preparation for an intense fifteen-day tournament a several-painkiller headache. Only the Premier League, with a two-week break, will have a comparably kind time-frame. England’s best competitor? Bloody-nosed and at home after losing a street-fight down a dark alley with Diego Simeone.
Should Barcelona reach their date with Napoli in peak condition, should they then scramble over that hurdle, they will be in prime position preparation-wise. Humanity is quite often the thing that analysis robs footballers of most. Being paid a lot makes the typical footballer no less wedded to habit than anyone else; in fact, athletes are more entrenched in routine than anyone. The game against Napoli, one more than some other sides, could provide an extra few days of adjustment. Slightly more time to get used to the pitches, the weather, the hotel – to get comfortable.
Setién remains an uncertainty in this elaborate, precarious argument. He was a sure thing – at least in terms of style. Accepting that he has been unable to mold this side to his ideas means that given time, the present would in theory look a little different to the future. The former deduction can be made by watching Barcelona, who don’t resemble anything too closely. Or indeed by listening to Setién, who has made this point himself. Additional weeks on the training ground could prove decisive to a manager who is yet to see a pre-season. Automatismos are a requirement for effective football teams, more so for the surgical game that Setién romanticizes.
Certain narratives might have a manager who hit the big-time, cowed by the size of it all, without the conviction to make unpopular decisions. Others will tell you Setién’s struggles are merely elucidating the chronic problems at the club. Maybe Valverde wasn’t the Antichrist after all.
The temptation for the Cantabrian, the right thing to do, would be to come out passing, doubling down on his ideals. Because in all likelihood, the players will be playing for his job. Easier said than done, if you read anything into his now persistent expression of irritation on the sideline. Is it unfair to judge him on the last six months? Absolutely. To think he won’t be though, is naïve. Setién will have been all too aware of the circus surrounding the club before joining, but being aware and being prepared are not one and the same. It is no coincidence that every successful manager this century, Rijkaard aside, has previously worn the shirt themselves.
Anfield, Turin, and Rome showed collapses of theatrical proportions. Mentality was missing and it was crude in its absence. Even so, as the house blazes around them, there is a growing feeling that it has in fact been the strength of will that has held this side together up until now. The cracks have been present and widening for years, they just happened to have the best structural problem solver in the world in Messi, accompanied by a guard of Pique, Busquets, and Suárez. Now that the damage has reached breaking point, it seems this glue is of little use to fix the overriding issues.
But over the course of four games, in a difficult tournament, it could well be important. If Puig, Fati, and Braithwaite can provide vigor and legs, it can be vital. Age appears to have reached the old guard before reinforcements, but it is easy to forget they were two games away from victory in Europe last season. This season they would play two fewer. In the event they did reach the final, since Guardiola’s arrival, Barcelona have won 21 of 27 finals played. Half of their defeats were in the Supercopa de España, a two-legged competition often played with minimal preparation.
Some of the previous failings of this squad have been removed; arguably more have been presented. With the odds of upset increasing though, so have Barcelona’s chances. Regardless of the depths the club has been dwelling at most of the season, Messi and Barcelona’s ceiling is as high as most teams. Should things fall for them, an unlikely victory remains within the realm of possibility at the very least. The biggest factor of all; they have football’s one-man troubleshooting guide, an Argentine Allan Key. Given the motivation and the briefness of the campaign, and if Setién can make the problems small enough, you can bet on Messi solving them.
This was a guest post by Ruairidh Barlow, is one of those football fans that describes himself as ‘avid’. Read more of his articles on Postage Stamp Football, a bi-weekly blog focusing on matches, analysis and culture in Spain and sometimes beyond.
