Comment: FC Barcelona + David Villa = Unstoppable European Force

You can buy Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema and even add Franck Ribery and Xabi Alonso, you can spend over €200 million in just one month, you can even spent hundred million more in another and embark on the most expensive spending spree in football history but that doesn't change the fact that you don't have the best team in the world; FC Barcelona have. At the moment.

Real Madrid are building a team, the greatest in football history; Barcelona are already a well built, well oiled, well functioning team, the best in the world and the greatest in recent football history. Madrid's expensive revolution this summer is in some parts a response to Barca's all-consuming, all-subsuming, awe-inspiring, overwhelming demonstration of galactic football last season and that in itself is an acceptance of the superiority of Barca. At the moment.

Barcelona have the best player in the world (Lionel Messi), the best central midfielder (Xavi), the best attacking midfielder (Andres Iniesta) and one of the two best right-backs (Daniel Alves). They also have one of the two best strikers in the world (Samuel Eto'o) and have now added the other best striker (David Villa) to their squad. And have now gone even better.

Goal.com revealed exclusively on Thursday evening that David Villa is on his way to Barcelona. Of course, like what happened with Aly Cissokho and AC Milan and with Villa and Real Madrid, the deal might get scrapped at the very last moment but assuming that the deal between Barcelona and Valencia does go through, it can be safely said that Barcelona would have gone one step ahead of themselves from last season.

David Villa's arrival, rather presumed arrival, is a strong indication of Samuel Eto'o's imminent departure but you can't complain when you replace the second best striker in the world with the best, can you? In the past four or five seasons, Eto'o and Villa have been the two best strikers in Spain and are now the two best in entire Europe.

While Eto'o has scored 83 goals in the league in the last four seasons, having suffered injuries in two of them, Villa has scored 87. In terms of accuracy, Eto’o took 67 shots on target last season scoring 30 goals while Villa had 71 shots on target, netting the ball 28 times. Eto'o had been an indispensable fragment of Barcelona's team both in Spain and in the Champions League; since the departure of Pablo Aimar, it's been David Villa who has been spearheading Valencia and carrying the club's hopes on his humble shoulders.

To deign Eto'o's legendary goalscoring ability over the years for Barcelona to the contribution of Ronaldinho and Xavi and Iniesta and Messi would be a huge disrespect to the Cameroonian who was scoring goals even when he was at modest Real Mallorca, but to deny that playing along with some legendary players didn't help him get the goals would be naive. Villa too has been helped by midfielders at Valencia but he has not been served by a Ronaldinho or a Messi.

Villa is a more technical player than Eto'o and is as much a scorer of goals as a creator of them, like Eto’o; he takes free-kicks, corner-kicks and penalties, he can score with either foot from any position even from the center-line and can even use his unimpressive 1.75m stature to out-jump the most imposing of defenders to score with his head.

David Villa won’t be taking the penalties or the free-kicks at Barcelona (which might decimate the number of goals he would score for them) but at the same time he would be served by three of the best players in the world and by a certain revived-again Thierry Henry, which can only help him get more goals. Villa's clinical finishing and intelligence would be a huge asset to a Barcelona team that relies as much on teamwork as on individual artistry and with his media-shyness and low off-pitch profile (everyone knows his love for Sporting de Gijon but unlike Samuel Eto'o he doesn't define his current club as merely a workplace), he would be the perfect striker for Barcelona, both on the pitch and off it.

Only a few days back Real Madrid were in negotiations with Valencia and Villa himself was keen on moving to the Bernabeu. The Spanish international striker would have been a guaranteed success at Madrid just as he is a guaranteed success at Barcelona but with Valencia playing hardball and Madrid president Florentino Perez measuring players in terms of marketing, that move was off. Of course, Madrid consequently made a brilliant signing in Karim Benzema, who being still only 21 could go on to become a better player than Villa in the subsequent years but unlike the 27-year-old the Frenchman has not played in Spain and doesn't guarantee success and goals from day one.

Which tilts the balance towards Barcelona. For now.

Subhankar Mondal