Gone In Nine Days - Barcelona's Nine Months Of Galactic Football

Forget Real Madrid's brilliant innovation to lose five successive league matches to allow Valencia CF to roar ahead to the 2003-2004 Spanish first division title, AC Milan's marvelous act of letting go a 3-0 lead in the space of six minutes in the final of the UEFA Champions League 2005 to end up losing the match on penalties, Bayer Leverkusen’s ridiculous transformation into Bayer Neverkusen in 2002 to finish runners-up in each of the three competitions they participated in; this could just be the biggest and most insane collapse in football history.

Gone in 60 Seconds might be one of the best known Hollywood movies but the blockbuster that is set to hit the theatres in the summer would be even more enthralling: "Gone in Nine Days - Barcelona’s Nine Months of Galactic Football".

All this season FC Barcelona have been the best team in Europe, Lionel Messi the best footballer, Samuel Eto’o the most dangerous striker, Andres Iniesta the best creative midfielder and Pep Guardiola the most talked about coach. All this season Barcelona have been playing a brand of football unseen in Europe for three years; they have been destroying records and creating them. All this season Barcelona have scored goals after goals after goals; they have thrashed the likes of Almeria and Sporting Gijon with as much ease as they have hammered the likes of Olympique Lyon and Bayern Munich.

All this season it seemed that Barcelona could do nothing wrong. They have scored more goals than any of the league leaders in Europe’s major domestic leagues, their front three-Thierry Henry, Eto’o and Messi-are statistically one of the most frightening in Spanish football history, they have regularly won matches retaining possession for 65% of the time and at times have seen the ball so much that the opposition might as well have had asked for another ball.

All this season Barcelona have led you to believe that they would win everything, the Catalan media has forced you to believe that it is only a formality for them to play the remainder of the matches in the season as the trophies are already theirs. But all this time Pep Guardiola and his boys have consistently reminded everyone that they still haven’t won anything. And they might not really win anything, such is the tenacious situation at the moment.

A 2-2 comeback draw with Valencia on Saturday followed by Tuesday evening's 0-0 draw with Chelsea- who have kept dark magic and witchcraft alive as they voodoo-ed their goal, parked their bus and the driver and 10 players in front of it in an attempt to play the old Italian way of getting a 0-0 draw away and then winning 1-0 at home- have put the Catalans in a situation of winning nothing at the end of the season.

A defeat to Real Madrid in el clasico on Saturday would trim the gap between them and Juande Ramos’ side to just a solitary point and then a defeat at Stamford Bridge would knock them out of Europe, demoralizing them to such an extent that Basque giants Athletic Bilbao might just fancy putting one over them in the Copa del Rey final on May 13.

Frankly, Barcelona haven't done much wrong this season except on three occasions. The first one was at the start of the season when they went down 1-0 to relegation candidates Numancia, the second one was in late February/early March in which they dropped 8 points and allowed Madrid to close the gap to six and the third is this time when they managed only a point at the Mestalla (and only a scoreless draw with Chelsea in the Champions League), allowing the gap to become only four.

But except for that Numancia debacle, the blips have come at a time when the other team(s) have been at their effective best. That second lean period came in the absence of Andres Iniesta and in the presence of Real Madrid winning 10 successive league matches. Since then while Barcelona have gone onto win seven, Madrid have gone onto win as many. Chelsea have been revitalized under Guus Hiddink after being erratic for much of the season under Luiz Felipe Scolari and their pragmatic but un-romantic approach on Tuesday exposed Barcelona's helplessness to play against a side that has the personnel and more importantly the desire to stop playing football and copy the Italians of the pre-historic era.

Suddenly there is a lack of Plan B under Pep Guardiola, just as there was a lack of Plan B under Frank Rijkaard. Suddenly, with Carles Puyol suspended for the return leg of the Champions League semi-final on Wednesday, Rafael Marquez out for the rest of the season, Gabriel Milito out since forever, Eric Abidal not looking consistent, Daniel Alves looking more of a right winger than a right back, Lionel Messi getting marked and getting hacked by three opposition players at the same time, Barcelona seem to be out of their depth. Suddenly there is a doubt whether Barcelona have enough steel in them to grind out results.

And perhaps there is some substance in that doubt. Barcelona might have the best defensive record in La Liga this season but their backfour is more suited to scoring goals than stopping them, Alves might be the best right-back in the world but not the best right-back for the Brazilian national team and Messi seems to get out-muscled by dirty tactics and three-men-marking-one-guy philosophy.

Nothing has been won yet, but nothing has been lost either; Barcelona are very much in the running to win everything. A defeat to Madrid would still keep them a point ahead and it is not too probable for Madrid to beat them 3-0 at the Bernabeu, so on head-to-head record Barcelona would be on top, or least at par if Madrid do win 2-0. A 0-0 is not that bad a scoreline to take to Stamford Bridge given that the Blues don’t have a killing away goal: a Barcelona goal would force Chelsea to score two and therefore force them to play a more open game.

It might not have appeared earlier but now it seems that these nine days could just define Barcelona’s season: these nine days could resurrect them or simply wreck them. The first two matches of this four match finale have seen them end up on the receiving end.

Where would the last two matches of this four match finale see them end up?

Subhankar Mondal