|
|
Spanish Inquisition: Was The 5-0 Thrashing Of Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid Barcelona's Best Ever Performance Under Pep Guardiola?
Goal.com's Subhankar Mondal wonders whether Monday night's triumph was the Blaugrana's best under Pep...
Nov 30, 2010 12:10:00 PM
By Subhankar Mondal
The final whistle had been blown and chants of "Mourinho, go to the theatre!" began to resonate inside Camp Nou. It was a direct play by the Barcelona fans on Mourinho's accusations of Lionel Messi in February 2006 that he had taken the tumble all too easily against Chelsea to send off Asier del Horno. After getting bored of picking on Cristiano Ronaldo, whom the Blaugrana faithful see as the physical embodiment of Mourinho's dark art, they decided to stuff it to their former 'translator'.
Problem is Mourinho was already in the theatre and he was already watching a masterclass performance worthy of a pictorial depiction. It was as much the scoreline as the fashon in which it was chiselled that enthralled one and all; it was as much a wonderful game of football as a free flowing spontaneous rap appealing at one's finer senses; It was football at its artistic best; Wordsworthian aesthetics garbed in the guise of sport.
And one suspects that even Mourinho enjoyed watching it. The Portuguese is not always keen on exhibiting entertaining football and comes from the school that prefers winning at all cost to winning in style; but cowed on his seat in the dugout with almost 100,000 baying for his blood and his arrogance and aura withering into dust like crumbling relics, he lost all clues what to do and probably simply started enjoying the art. Well, he should have anyway just like the rest of us did.
It was a virtuoso performance from Barcelona. Wait, let's rephrase it: it was yet another virtuoso performance. And the best under Pep Guardiola.
Now, you would counter this argument with some impressive scorelines in the past two and a half years, but after we have comfortably subtracted the heavy wins against the Bayern Munichs, Atletico Madrids, Valencias, Almerias et al., we are left with three most outstanding performances: 2008-09 Champions League final against Manchester United, 2008-09 La Liga clash with Real Madrid and 2009-10 Champions League quarter-final, second-leg against Arsenal.
Each of the three were scintillating, yet if you dissect deep enough you will notice that the 4-1 win against Arsenal and the victory at the Bernabeu get overshadowed by Monday night's triumph. The Gunners at Camp Nou were blown away like a piece of rubbish in a storm in a European Cup quarter-final, yet the suggestion that it perhaps could have been slightly different had Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie and Andrei Arshavin been involved is hard to ignore. The Gunners were severely depleted especially without Fabregas and a Barca victory was expected.
Madrid were fighting a losing war against Barcelona in May 2009 and didn't have the team to compete against the world's best. The 6-2 humiliation was Barca's best performance in the league that season but they were expected to win even behind enemy lines - or at least not lose despite Juande Ramos' brilliance from the touchline. On Monday it was a close call.
Barcelona's Best Performance Under Pep
The 2-0 victory over Manchester United, though, was a different matter. The score doesn't appear very convincing perhaps, but the performance was. After the initial few minutes, the Blaugrana were completely in control as Guardiola conjured up a mastermind tactic to deploy Messi as a withdrawn centre-forward instead of stationing him wide right. It took United's defence by surprise and the Red Devils collapsed, in a major cup final.
However, the 5-0 humiliation surpasses them all, if only for the fact that it came against a Real Madrid team coached by Mourinho - Barca's two most loathed adversaries vanquished in one stroke; the proverbial stone killing two birds.
Last season Barcelona had held the upperhand in three of the games they featured against Mourinho's Inter but lost the war because of the Nerazzurri's triumph at San Siro in the semi-final first-leg at San Siro. Nevermind, that Inter went through by just the one aggregare goal or that Bojan Krkic's late strike was wrongly disallowed; Barca were said to have been taught a lesson. By Mourinho.
But now the demon of revenge has been satisfied, payback metted out. And in some style!
Click here to follow the Goal.com Twitter feed and join Goal.com USA's Facebook fan page!
Problem is Mourinho was already in the theatre and he was already watching a masterclass performance worthy of a pictorial depiction. It was as much the scoreline as the fashon in which it was chiselled that enthralled one and all; it was as much a wonderful game of football as a free flowing spontaneous rap appealing at one's finer senses; It was football at its artistic best; Wordsworthian aesthetics garbed in the guise of sport.
And one suspects that even Mourinho enjoyed watching it. The Portuguese is not always keen on exhibiting entertaining football and comes from the school that prefers winning at all cost to winning in style; but cowed on his seat in the dugout with almost 100,000 baying for his blood and his arrogance and aura withering into dust like crumbling relics, he lost all clues what to do and probably simply started enjoying the art. Well, he should have anyway just like the rest of us did.
And that's the point - Mourinho was left clueless and rendered, in his own words, "impotent" to close the floodgates. The Portuguese is arguably the best coach on the planet but when he suffers a 5-0 humiliation, you know that the opposition is special. Very, very special.
Which is why Barcelona's 5-0 battering of Madrid on Monday night is their greatest triumph under Pep Guardiola so far. The mere presence of Mourinho made the game a massive challenge and the three-time European champions passed it with ease, inflicting on the 47-year-old the worst defeat of his coaching career.
The win came against a Madrid side who have undergone reconstruction and renaissance since the arrival of Mourinho and have genuinely looked competent both in the Primera Division and in the Champions League. Under the former Chelsea and Inter boss los Blancos have been truly brilliant - until Monday night, that is - and came into this game with as much a chance of winning as Barcelona. Unbeaten in all competitions this campaign with the (joint) best attacking and defensive record in the league, Madrid were determined to stop Barcelona from winning five Clasicos in a row.
Only, Barca are a better team than Madrid. Mourinho has persistently insisted that his is a 'team under construction' while Barca, despite the hiccups against Hercules and Rubin Kazan, remain the most attractive and near-perfect team on the planet. The Spanish champions imposed themselves on their arch-rivals right from the start and their two early goals killed the game as a contest. Of course, it was made more comfortable by Madrid's backfour failing to maintain their shape and the attack, midfield and defence looking as disjointed as a couple in the process of divorce, but it was Barcelona's commitment to take the game to Madrid and not heeding the Mourinho threat that was so inspiring.
Barcelona's audacity to run rings around their most loathed adversaries in the world's biggest football match was remarkable. Pep Guardiola's team completed over 600 passes in the match with Xavi contributing 110 without playing the entire 90 minutes. Messi didn't exactly look at his best in the first 45 minutes but destroyed Madrid from midfield upward in the second session; Andres Iniesta's movements left the Merengues defenders raising the SOS sign and David Villa, the world's most complete centre-forward Madrid president Florentino Perez refused to sign, scored two goals and made one.It was a virtuoso performance from Barcelona. Wait, let's rephrase it: it was yet another virtuoso performance. And the best under Pep Guardiola.
Now, you would counter this argument with some impressive scorelines in the past two and a half years, but after we have comfortably subtracted the heavy wins against the Bayern Munichs, Atletico Madrids, Valencias, Almerias et al., we are left with three most outstanding performances: 2008-09 Champions League final against Manchester United, 2008-09 La Liga clash with Real Madrid and 2009-10 Champions League quarter-final, second-leg against Arsenal.
Each of the three were scintillating, yet if you dissect deep enough you will notice that the 4-1 win against Arsenal and the victory at the Bernabeu get overshadowed by Monday night's triumph. The Gunners at Camp Nou were blown away like a piece of rubbish in a storm in a European Cup quarter-final, yet the suggestion that it perhaps could have been slightly different had Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie and Andrei Arshavin been involved is hard to ignore. The Gunners were severely depleted especially without Fabregas and a Barca victory was expected.
Madrid were fighting a losing war against Barcelona in May 2009 and didn't have the team to compete against the world's best. The 6-2 humiliation was Barca's best performance in the league that season but they were expected to win even behind enemy lines - or at least not lose despite Juande Ramos' brilliance from the touchline. On Monday it was a close call.
Barcelona's Best Performance Under Pep
| 2-0 |
Win against Manchester United in UCL final in May 2009 |
| 4-1 | Win against Arsenal in UCL quarter-final in April 2010 |
| 6-2 | Win against Real Madrid in La Liga in May 2009 |
| 4-0 |
Win against Bayern Munich in UCL quarter-final in April 2009 |
| 2-0 | Win against Inter in UCL in group stage November 2009. |
The 2-0 victory over Manchester United, though, was a different matter. The score doesn't appear very convincing perhaps, but the performance was. After the initial few minutes, the Blaugrana were completely in control as Guardiola conjured up a mastermind tactic to deploy Messi as a withdrawn centre-forward instead of stationing him wide right. It took United's defence by surprise and the Red Devils collapsed, in a major cup final.
However, the 5-0 humiliation surpasses them all, if only for the fact that it came against a Real Madrid team coached by Mourinho - Barca's two most loathed adversaries vanquished in one stroke; the proverbial stone killing two birds.
Last season Barcelona had held the upperhand in three of the games they featured against Mourinho's Inter but lost the war because of the Nerazzurri's triumph at San Siro in the semi-final first-leg at San Siro. Nevermind, that Inter went through by just the one aggregare goal or that Bojan Krkic's late strike was wrongly disallowed; Barca were said to have been taught a lesson. By Mourinho.
But now the demon of revenge has been satisfied, payback metted out. And in some style!
Click here to follow the Goal.com Twitter feed and join Goal.com USA's Facebook fan page!
Inside Goal.Com
-
RIGG: Anelka struggling against the current in Shanghai
Nicolas Anelka went against the grain when he moved to Shanghai. Now he's finding that coaching and gelling tactically is like swimming against the tide.
-
ROGERS: Bradley should command a bidding war among Serie A teams
Chievo is currently shopping the American midfielder and several Italian clubs have shown interest.
-
ISOLA: Neymar-led Brazil should be considered the 2014 WC favorite
Neymar was brilliant as Brazil easily handled the United States with early World Cup preparations officially underway.
-
LATHAM: Mexico using summer friendlies to build depth
With World Cup qualifying to begin in June, Mexico is using three U.S.-hosted friendlies to build squad depth.
-
McCARTHY: Harrisburg springs its wildest Open Cup upset to date
The City Islanders fought back from three goals down with nine minutes to play and won the game on penalty kicks in a stunning game on a wild night for the U.S. Open Cup.