Would Pep have settled for Barcas insipid first-half performance at Mestalla? Not likely. Would he have allowed Dani Alves to make a video of himself singing and dancing and fooling around in club attire the night before the crucial Champions League clash at Atletico? No way. Would he have bought Alex Song as a solution to Barcas problems in central defence? Its hard to imagine. One of Guardiolas conditions for staying at Barca was a revolutionary renewal of the playing staff, with several first-team members to be put up for sale. But Alves, Gerard Pique and Cesc Fabregas are all still at Camp Nou and Pep is not. At Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson sold David Beckham because he considered the midfielder was focusing more on off-the-pitch activities than football. Guardiola fell out with Pique for the same reasons, while he grew digruntled with Alves attitude (as Barca have this season) and was unhappy with Fabregas commitment to the cause. But on top of that, this is not the same squad which wowed the world between 2008 and 2011. Captain Carles Puyol is no longer good enough even for this team when there are injuries, when before he was one of the games greatest defenders, while Xavi remains important but is also a fading force in his twilight years and committed players like Eric Abidal and Seydou Keita are no longer at the club. Meanwhile, Messi has been injured, Neymars signing seems to have rocked the boat with the Argentine and others at Camp Nou, and other sides are also now finding out how they can deactivate this team. Additionally, most of these players have won it all and are older now, while poor planning of the squad means there has been no evolution. And, as if that werent enough, many of the first team seem to be conserving energies for the World Cup.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Apr 2014 09:13:40 +0000
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