Changing Dynamics : In the Aftermath of the Clasico

The Clasico is long gone, having lived up to the expected frenzy in terms of football and thankfully not in terms of histrionics. Normal affairs resumed from then on, with both giants winning their league fixtures albeit in different ways – Real in calm fashion and Barcelona in a nerve-wrecking one. Then to Champions League, where both teams were tested, with only Barca coming out unscathed thanks to their new found spirit that is beginning to define their season, something which was missing from the last one. Real lost to Dortmund, but it is a loss that is expected to have no real implications in their campaign and lets face it – Dortmund is a very very good team, so nothing to panic about.

But looking at the bigger picture, things are changing at the two clubs. Things that may have a decisive effect not only the upcoming weeks, but also in the forthcoming seasons for the rival clubs. We take a look at a few of these here.

A Different Barcelona Approach Under A Different Coach:

Many claim that Guardiola’s reign, although a short one was certainly the most successful one ever in the history of the club. And it was not only in terms of the number of trophies that he won during his tenure, but also the change he brought about in their playing style, which has now became their trademark. What he did to Barcelona did not just take them to the top of the footballing ladder, but has revolutionized the club with his unique philosophy, inspired by Johann Cryuff. Pep’s style of play was not just a football style; it was like a lifestyle to him which he wanted the players to practice on and off the pitch. Pep was not just a coach, he was a philosopher. He tried a lot of stuff with his formations and player positions, without fearing for the outcome, always looking for new solutions.

"Vilanova's main test will arrive with a couple of bad results. Will his proposals be accepted by everybody?"

-Guillem Balague  

Tito Vilanova on the other hand has more or less a direct coaching philosophy, may not have big ideas, but what he has is a clear motive- win games. Tito knows that he has limited options at the back, a constant issue now from regularly occurring injuries, and with continuous pressure from the rivals Real Madrid who keep on getting better and stronger with each passing year, he knows that in order to win games, he has to transform Barcelona and tweak its “beautiful game” a little. Now we see them playing a lot more long passes, and the defending line is a lot deeper as compared to what we would have seen over the last few years. Now that many teams are trying to copy the old Barcelona style of play, this Barcelona is moving on to their own new version. This Barcelona, I won’t say is better or worse, but certainly effective when you look at the season stats till now.

Changing Roles For Ronaldo And Messi:

What we have come to know over years, as a general opinion, is that Ronaldo is more of a direct player who likes to go for the goal rather than passing it to his team mates, while Messi is considered to be a better passer of the ball, who totally resembles the Barcelona style of play.

But we certainly have seen a change in their styles over the course of the last year. Call it competition to score more goals, or a desire to lead their respective teams to realms of footballing glory; they have changed their games for the benefit of their teams.

The new Ronaldo now combines more with other players, with the likes of Benzema, Ozil and Marcelo, gives more assists to the strikers, and tracks back more than he would have done till last year.

"Messi is perfect for the Barcelona system, controlling the ball, while Ronaldo is perfect for the Real Madrid system, which is more on the counter attack."  

- Albert Ferrer

Messi, on the other hand, is becoming more and more indispensable for Barcelona. In the current setup with Messi playing as a false 9, everything goes through the little genius. With him dropping deeper and deeper into midfield, especially in the big games, every forward play, every build-up move is initiated and most likely finished by this man.  This change, how-much-ever ideal or not, is benefitting Barcelona at present, but may very well hurt them too at a certain moment of time in the future should Barca somehow lose him to an injury!

Divide In Real Madrid Dressing Room:

The rumours were flying high before the clasico, and they certainly got higher after it. There is a specific section of players in the Real Madrid dressing room, who are finding it difficult to share the spotlight with Mourinho, that certain section being Ozil, Ramos and Casillas. Others like Higuain and Ronaldo have also expressed their concerns in the past. The Madrid dressing room is definitely broken, if you are to believe the news in the Spanish media.

Sergio Ramos sporting an Ozil 10
shirt under his own shirt

With Ozil being dropped from the line-up time and time again over the start of the season, he had expressed his dissatisfaction in the media. But him being more of a silent and shy player, it couldn’t have hurt the dressing room atmosphere, and more importantly Mourinho's ego, enough. What certainly did hurt Mourinho were the continuous back-fires from Ramos, be it with the dissatisfaction that he expressed at his comments, or wearing the Ozil shirt below his own as a mark of support for his team mate. The issue went as far as Ramos being a hot transfer target in the upcoming winter transfer window. The other member of the squad, who generally prefers to keep out of controversy, but has invariably been in the news under Mourinho, is Casillas. There have been issues regarding his close friendship with rival club’s Xavi and Iniesta, his recent mistake against Ajax and he was once again blamed for not stretching enough for the Messi free-kick goal.

The Ballon d'Or award doesn't do any good to the team atmosphere either. Ronaldo and Casillas are two of Madrid's main contenders for the prestigious award. While Ronaldo has scored a pile of goals last season for his team in all competitions, a lot of Spaniards are of the opinion that Iker Casillas deserves the award for the years of service to the Spanish outfit and the national team with such consistency. Mourinho has decided to choose otherwise. He might have avoided facing the Spanish press in recent weeks, but he has talked openly to the foreign media about Cristiano being the best contender for this year's Ballon d'Or. This has not gone well with the Spanish section of the Madrid team, who think that the Portuguese section is benefiting under the coach.

But Mourinho is not new to going against big personalities in the dressing room. He has a distinct method of managing these kinds of issues, and here also; he has not bowed down and benched these certain players to punish them. And, as a result, these players have come stronger in the next few matches to prove their worth in the team thereby benefited the team, whether dissatisfied or not. We can only speculate and wait to see how things unfold in the upcoming months.

The Curios Case of Cesc Fabregas : 

Last year Fabregas made a return to his boyhood club Barcelona. He seemed to have instantly gelled into the team, providing a flurry of goals and assists for his team. But the goals soon dried up. And Cesc started becoming somewhat of a misfit to the 4-3-3 formation of Barcelona.

The reason being Fabregas' habit of going forward in attack from his Arsenal days. There is no denying that he has got a perfect eye for goal and ultimate instincts for a defence-splitting pass, but Guardiola wanted more discipline from him. He was not supposed to roam about in all positions, but stay in the midfield and support the backline in the event of counter-attacks too. That, Fabregas couldn't adapt to. The consequence, him being benched for the majority of the second half of last season.

But since Tito has taken over, we have seen two different approaches from the coach, one with Xavi who as we all know thrives on more possession and has majestic control of the game, and one with Fabregas who has a more direct approach and more attacking intent. Both of them seemed to have worked till now, with Barcelona winning all of their games with an exception of the Clasico. But the problem - these two systems don't seem to work simultaneously.

Vilanova has used these systems with great effect and watched them from distance, giving freedom to Fabregas that suits him, and using Xavi when he needed more control over the game. What he intends to do - try and bring what Fabregas brings to the team with Xavi still in the team. How he does that, remains to be seen.

  

The Ozil - Kaka Incompatibility :

Ozil didn't take much time to establish himself as the creative playmaker position in the Madrid team once he was bought. He won a lot of praise from all over the world. But all of this growth can be attributed to one major reason- Kaka's long term absence due to injury till last season.

Kaka or Ozil : A choice to be made

Kaka has had his chances limited at the star-studded Madrid side. But hardly anyone in the world would question his pedigree as one of the best attacking midfielders to have ever graced the game. And he has shown the glimpses of his amazing goal-scoring instincts in the limited chances that he got for the Madrid side as well as the Brazil national side. Now that he is in good shape and in awesome form, Mourinho has another choice to make - Ozil or Kaka?

He tried to play both of them in attacking midfield in the last league game. But the idea seemed to result in a failure. The reason- both of them seemed to be fighting for each other's space on the pitch. They both have almost identical styles of play, and can't be played simultaneously with great effect.

So, it would be interesting to see what Mourinho does in the upcoming few fixtures, go with the regular option of Ozil, or use the bolstering form of Kaka and secure him from leaving in the next transfer window.

The Defence Woes :

The defensive problems are not new for the Blaugrana side, with Carles Puyol being injured for the most of the season last year, and Abidal fighting and recuperating from a tumor surgery. The injury woes have hit them harder this season, with every single one of their main backline last year - Alves, Pique, Puyol and Abidal, simultaneously out of play. The situation doesn't get any better with Mascherano and Busquets serving suspensions due to the red cards received by them in recent games. The makeshift defender in the form of Alex Song is far from even decent in the position, while Adriano also seems totally unfit when featured at the center of the defence. Bartra, who is a natural center back from the La Masia youth academy, has found his chances limited and was finally handed a season debut against Celtic where he performed admirably.

The interesting point being when Barcelona will realise that it’s high time they buy a proper center-back and give more chances to Bartra to adapt and realise his potential for the first team.

Then there is this Real Madrid side, which seemed to have a lot of options for every single position on the pitch. But you never know what can happen in football, do you? One international break, and they have a plethora of players injured - Marcelo, Arbeloa, Coentrao and Khedira to mention a few. This called for Essien to fill in for the vacant left back postion in the last league game and against Dortmund. Real Madrid seemed to have won comfortably in the former, but the effect was felt against Dortmund with Casillas himself admitting that their left side was the more vulnerable one.

So, the arrangements at the back for the two teams might very well be a big deciding factor in the race for the major titles this year.

La Liga or Champions League?

The Bernabeu outfit find themselves at an unfamiliar fourth spot in the league after eight rounds of match-ups, eight points adrift from the league leaders Barcelona and a resurgent Atletico Madrid side. But despite their Catalan enemies stealing the show domestically, Real Madrid have been impressive in the European fixtures, and are placed second in Group D, which was touted to be the Group of Death. With 6 points in hand, and two out of the next three group stage matches at home, their chances of qualifying for the knockout stage of the competition look fairly promising.

Now, the degree of pressure on the side is high, especially on Mourinho, since they are trailing behind Barcelona in the league. But the people in the club's board think a little otherwise.

"We're not in any way trying to say the league doesn't matter, but they're looking very hard at the importance of the Champions League."

- Graham Hunter

Real Madrid recently announced that they are in about 520m Euros of global debt. That, surely is a huge sum, about 220m more than Barcelona or Valencia. What Real Madrid need to do to cut into the debt is perform well in the Champions League like their march till the semi-finals in the last two tournaments, through which they earned nearly 100m Euros. So, as long as Madrid is maintaining their European form, the pressure on Mourinho would be considerably less than what it should be for being 8 points behind Barcelona.

Happy B'day, Mr.Abramovich!

   Roman Abramovich. The mercurial, avaricious and mega rich owner of Chelsea Football Club. Ever since the Russian business tycoon has taken over the London based football club, he has unprecedentedly changed the dynamics of the premier league. 
   
   Before the Abramovich era, players were brought on a rational basis. Many factors led the way, like the value-addition he would make to the team, the financial condition of the club, the value-for-money constraint, the player in the present team who would make way for the new arrival, the manager's extent of desire for the new acquisition,.. et cetera. Not that the new transfers being made are irrational, but most of the times, Abramovich's capricious desires make the footballing world gape with awe. Like the time he bought Fernando Torres. No doubt, Torres was the most lethal striker on the planet at that point of time. Defenders dreaded his mere presence. But for a football fan, it didn't really make sense, especially because of the fact that Chelsea wanted the star player of their Rivals and furthermore, Chelsea's strike force was already filled with Drogba, Anelka, Sturridge and Salomon Kalou and Roman paid an exorbitant fee of £50 million, breaking the british transfer records and making Torres one of the most expensive players of the world. But as time did tell, he joined the list of the failures, which already included Shaun Wright-Phillips, Andriy Shevchenko etc..He may still have a few years left on his contract to prove his worth, but he would never ever be able to justify his price tag.
   
   It's not just about a past few seasons which marked the arrivals of stars like Torres,Mata,Hazard,Luiz; Abramovich has been digging deep into his bank accounts time and again, right from his acquisition of the club. Transfers like Essien(£24.4 million), Cole(involved in a swap deal with rivals Arsenal), Drogba(£24 million), Shevchenko(£30 million), Malouda(£16.5 million) signify the spendings of the Roman Era. Its not just about the world class players that attract Abramovich's eye; He is also an impatient owner, who pulls the trigger over his managers very often.The present manager, Roberto Di Matteo is already the eighth different manager under his realm. The emphasis during every single year of his ownership being his profound obsession for the holy grail of football, the Champions League Trophy. The story of how di matteo became the permanent coach from being caretaker manager by achieving the Russian Billionaire's long-lasting desire is however a story of a different article, but the takeaway is that Abramovich has spent £76 million in the last 5 years on backroom staff alone, chopping and changing the managerial staff every now and then. And to pinpoint, a report claims that he has spent £32 million during the 7 month service period of the previous coach Villa-Boas alone, including a 12 million compensation paid to him for prematurely terminating his employment. A lucrative deal for failure I suppose!

  Figures speak, don't they? All those figures tell you the story of either a prodigal or a successful spending. But underlying those statistics also lie a deep & intense passion for the sport.

Abramovich's reaction after a Champion's league goal during the Road to Munich 

  Unlike the Glazers or Fenway Sports group or any other franchise owners, week in week out, you might find Abramovich in the stands of Stamford Bridge for the most parts of the season. His emotions reflecting all the instances on the field, be it his ear-to-ear grin after a BLUE's goal or a despaired look while they are trailing. Be it his post match dressing room meetings with the players or his hands-on involvement in all the crucial matters relating to the club, it all stems from one deep-lying passion for the game. He is a quirky owner, even he might accept that fact, but he is also an ardent fan for the club. He really cares about its well being & craves for the team to win the biggest trophies across the continent. And he doesn't just want to win. He wants to win it big time. He wants his team to play the most attractive football, dominate and tear apart opposition & at last, win the trophy with an unassailable attitude; with an acceptance from the world that they truly deserved it. And it manifests itself in his initial reluctance to make Di Matteo the permanent manager. And after all his heartfelt millions of spending over his entire tenure, maybe his wish stands at the periphery of being successful this season.

    He might have revolutionized & changed the perception of transfer market by the depth of his pockets, he might have started a new trend by acquiring/trying to acquire many world class players as per his wish and he might have sparked the drift towards the money ball game; In a way, his stamp over the modern football might go way down into the history books, that is the kind of effect he had produced on the sport. Even after all the criticism showered on him for his spendthriftiness and his lack of patience, he continues to go by his will and do everything that can be done by him to take Chelsea FC to new heights. He symbolises the epitome of an owner's passion. He may be noted on completely contrasting shades by football fans for his contributions to the modern game; But at Soccer Slaves, we cannot ignore the fact that, this beautiful game requires more such passionate owners, not because of the never-ending millions he brings to the table, but because of the infinite love he shows towards the game. 

  Happy Birthday, Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich!  
  

The Curious Case of Liverpool FC

Within a span of two weeks, the club played three games producing three different outcomes.A thumping & brilliant display at Carrow road,a disappointing loss in the Europa league and the last one, & much more prominent in illustrating its regular trend of performances, a frustrating draw against the potters, thanks to a resilient stoke defense and the profligate Liverpool strike-force, leaving the club & its fans still hungry for their first home premier league win.

And a brief knowledge of the past few seasons will help your mind in letting sink the fact that, the problem has grown its roots deep into the Anfield faithfuls' minds.

Barely 4 months back, an Anfield legend bid adieu to the KOP putting an end to the ambivalent state of our minds. And why not?, even the most incredible Red supporters did not have the heart to raise their voice against him. At least not after the turnaround under Kenny Dalglish's realm. "King Kenny", as he is fondly called by the fans, took the hot seat as the manager of Liverpool Football Club, when it was in a mess. Literally,a mess! It was having its first season without playing in the champions league,the holy grail of football; lost its best mid-fielders to the two most powerful teams in the world, its captain & talisman was having to put up with more than his fair share of injuries, the one main world-class player was ready to take the club's exit door, bought a bunch of below-average and over-aged players without any control over wage management, lost its place in Europa league and league cup..and the worst of all, the owners wanted to leave the club to its own fate.Truly,a mess! And adding to the woes, the one man who was supposed to take firm control of the club and steer it away from the troubled waters, the then manager Roy Hodgson, was having a tough time proving his credentials, not least because the critics were circling above to swoop in at the slightest hint of a crisis. Truly, THE worst period any sports franchise can ever go through.

 And then came forward the legend, Kenny Dalglish, accepting a tremendous challenge, letting the team out of the roaring darkness and walking them into light. He didn't really pull out magic. In-fact, he did not even revolutionize by installing new ethos or philosophies. He did it the old way. His own classic way, pretty much the way which led towards Liverpool FC becoming the most decorated British Football Club. The first thing he did, was to reconnect with fans, letting all the doubts vanish and producing the results, ON the field.He intended to do it The Liverpool Way.

Dalglish with Carling cup,ending a 6 year trophy drought at Anfield

Reverting to a standard English 4-4-2, he picked out his team with great wisdom and letting the maturity and integrity flow in every decision. He would gladly have asked Steven Gerrard to postpone his surgery.Even the skipper admitted to that. But NO, he had the greater good of the team and its future at the back of his mind , not having greed for short term benefits and immediately impactfull results. And his decision to let Torres go, which anyways was not much in his control, conveyed only one thing, only those who are worthy enough to know & respect their club will get to wear the jersey. And with the rich budget available from Abramovich's prodigal spendings, he spend the funds to establish the Suarez-Carroll partnership, trying to recreate the Sutton-Shearer strike partnership for which he was a successful architect.

And thus, by the mid-season the team had a all new front 6,except for the ever reliable Dirk Kuyt. But the results came, back-to-back. And by the end of the season, the team climbed up to end in the periphery of champions league contention. But it was to tough to realize then, that the vicious times were yet to engulf them.Backed by a decent transfer kitty, the club went on to recruit over-rated British players, pretty much ending up over-paying. May be, the old philosophy went a little too far.But no one had the courage to raise their voice, at least after a turn around half-season. 

But the brilliant form couldn't be replicated for the entire next season. Soon after the Carling cup win, it plunged  into a series of erroneous and forgettable performances. Losing 2-0 leads to be over run by mid-table and under performing sides, Luis Suarez displaying his profligate skills, team unable to stick to a standard formation leaving themselves vulnerable against opposition and most of all, the team on a whole lost its winning touch. And adding to that, there were around 35 poles hit and 7 penalties missed, pretty much summing up the whole season. Losing out on yet another champions league spot, Kenny dropped out. But not in a hostile conditions; even today any Supporter of the club,across the globe, would love to have him as the boss;He commands and most importantly, deserves that respect.

 Rodgers sure has a lot of work to do!

And then,with an intense search for a new manager, FSG went on appointing Brendan Rodgers. A young,confident & dynamic manager trying to install his ethos & philosophies into the roots of the club. But this time, there weren't extraordinary transfer budgets filled with the desire to obtain stars, who were capable of bringing trophies over night. There was a cautious approach, which manifested itself in the interesting new acquisitions. They openly proclaimed, that they are not in a hurry. Our owner's open letter to the fans was a record of that. He went on to state, that they are not here to build the team for the next few seasons. They are here to build the team for the next few decades. They are here to not let the club fall into the turmoil they were once exposed to, financially & otherwise. Simply, they want to re-build the image of the club, getting it back to its rightful place, to where it belongs.They are here, to build the future, step by step!

And yet again a few games into the premier league, we find our selves engulfed in problems. I will leave those things for some other article, but the point is: this was expected. When the £20m players are seated on the bench and a quite a few of 18-20 year olds are stepping up from the academy to ballast the sinking ship, the harsh reality can no longer be ignored. For the Barcelona-esque style to grow & flourish, for the players to transform into a lethal force and for the manager to sort out his striking problems and induce a winning motto and confidence into the team, he needs TIME. 

Not everyone can be as luck as  Roberto Di Matteo to be given an exceptional crop of talented players.   Rodgers is still trying to assemble the players required to execute his plans, he is trying to assess youngsters like Suso,Sterling and Shelvey and is trying to sort out his grave & pitiable striking anomalies. With the confidence he displays, which stem from a deep footballing knowledge, I strongly believe that it is not a matter of how but a matter of when before he starts delivering goods. All he needs is Patience from Anfield faithful. And given the magnitude of task asked of him, I believe he deserves it. Akarsh Sharma fairly summed it up a few months back " For the sake of Rodgers and for the sake of Liverpool Football club, give him some time". I don't know whether it can be done or not, because no one will ever know until it is done. So,as long it is not done, the curious case of Liverpool football club might persist. But for now, as an ardent Kopite, I let the case rest, with the hope of greater good for the future.

Football Clubs - Our Fellow Passengers

We apologise for the gap in between our first post and the second one. Damn international breaks!!

One of the things that a football fan does not look forward to is an international break. Yes, we can still watch international friendlies and world cup qualifiers, but it is just not the same, is it? So what is it that makes club football so endearing and country football not so much when it is the same beautiful game played by a different but familiar set of players?

This article may not be applicable to everyone, since I am an Indian and my day doesn't really get better or worse based on the results of the Indian National Team (no offence, but we have to suck up to reality), therefore, I am fairly biased towards club football.

Mixed Feelings!

Club football beats the international scene for many simply because it is much more exhilarating. While the quality of club football is undoubtedly better due to better understanding between the players resulting from playing together for almost the whole year, there is also that unquantifiable and inexplicable element about club football that simply puts it above the international scene for football lovers. So, here is my feeble attempt to put that element in words.

Remember when you had just started watching football and you were yet to pin your loyalty to a club? Most likely, you would have seen your club scoring a couple of goals resulting from some delightful interplay, or a couple of dominating performances in a string of matches and slowly but surely you begin to fall in love, track their matches, their opponents, predict the full-time scores and before long, you are playing spitball with the fans of your rival club. :D

Or one other way would be to just look at the league table and select the top club - a much simpler way. :P

Of course this may not apply to people in countries like say, England or Spain, where your club membership card may be getting processed even before you were born. ;)



Through the highs and lows!

Anyway, what I am trying to say is after making that choice, we stick with the club through the good and bad times, revel in the victories and trophy triumphs, encourage the team when they are lying low, boo them when they are indifferent to our support, utter obscenities at a misplaced pass or a miscued shot and what not, every match, every weekend, every month, every year.

In short - it is like a journey that we embark upon with the club for years to come!! :)

For me, this is why a club is so close to our hearts. It not only makes us go rapturous and ecastatic at times, go down in despair and anguish in others, but it stands as something to reflect upon when we look back in the future - lots of memories, sweet and bitter!

And hey, there is also that Premier League Fantasy which is the most visited page on our browsers in the weekend! ;)

The World Stops For El Classico

El Clasico - The game which packs all the facets of modern day football, be it the tiki-taka procession of Barcelona, the fleet-footed counter-attacks of Real Madrid, the mazy runs of La Pulga, the trickery of CR7, Pepe's classic brain fades and Busquets’ equally classic theatre and last but definitely not the least (definitely not :D) the eye-poking and grass-sliding (depending on the result) of one Mr. Jose Mourinho, all jam-packed into an enthralling 90 minutes.

Madrid faces Barca at Camp Nou on Sunday

Barcelona has started the league with a perfect record while Real Madrid….ummm….not so much. But if you looked at Barcelona’s recent matches, they had gone behind to Osasuna, Spartak Moscow, Sevilla before coming back to win and just scrapped through against Granada at home. All matches had one thing in common – the opposition had a clear game plan to contain Barcelona and they almost succeeded. This is something that happened last season too, ultimately resulting in Barcelona losing the league title.

Real Madrid on the other hand, started the season with something of a mini-crisis. 8 points dropped in the league before it barely started, dressing room drama between Mourinho and his charges, and the icing on the cake – Ronaldo’s sad face in the newsflash, you name it, it was all happening at the Bernabeu.

But none of that matters now. ‘The world stops for El Clasico’, said Mourinho in the build up to the match. I couldn’t agree more.

Whatever the pre-match form, El Clasico brings the best out of the two giants of La Liga. A perfect example would be the Real Madrid victory in the 2nd leg of the Super Cup. On the back of a draw and two losses in the opening 3 fixtures of the season, Madrid tore Barca apart in the 1st half of that match to eventually grab the Super Cup. No complacency and a lot of intensity.

Therefore, if we can be sure of one thing, it is this – for a Clasico, the slate is wiped clean and we start afresh.

Things look good for Barcelona in the attacking department. El Guaje (David Villa) is back and is back among the goals.

El Guaje back in action

Villa provides something others (except Messi) simply cannot, a potent goal threat. Villa generally starts on the left wing. When he has the ball he does 3 things. One, he runs to the by-line and provides crosses (somewhat rare), which is what most wingers do. Two, he cuts inside and shoots, usually to devastating affect. Three, he links up with Messi to play some delightful one-two’s, which usually end with Messi doing what he does best.

These are things Barcelona sorely missed in the previous season.

That last match at Sevilla is the perfect demonstration of this fact. David Villa came and David Villa scored. He linked up with Messi and unleashed a clinical finish, something you generally expect only from Messi in the rest of the team.

So Villa’s return couldn’t have come at a better time. I would love to see him start the Clasico (perhaps that is why he was rested at Benfica).

Iniesta’s return from injury also boosts the attack very much. We all know what the magician is capable of.

Also Fabregas finally seems to have gotten permission to score instead of asking his teammates whether or not he can shoot every time he gets the ball in the box. I used to scream ‘Shoot already, you idiot!!’ and when he finally did, it was usually not a pretty sight. So, Cesc back among the goals is another positive for Barca ahead of the big tie.

Attack aside; Barca's defence should be their major cause of worry ahead of the Clasico. If I was to point out one indecision in Pep and Tito's tactics, it is their insistence to use midfielders as defenders. They didn't buy a defender in the summer - big mistake!! Now, they have a back line of Alves, Song, Mascherano, and Alba – all of them used to being in the opposition half for most of the match. Real Madrid will be licking their lips.

There was a glimmer of hope when Puyol started against Benfica, but alas, it was not meant to be. A decision on Pique will be taken on Saturday. So no respite till then.

CR7 all smiles again

Real Madrid is coming and they will press like hounds-out-for-blood in the first half-hour and Barcelona can win only if they survive this initial period.

On the other end, the Real Madrid camp finally looks to have come out of their mini-crisis, not least because Ronaldo is flashing smiles to the world. With Mourinho finally acknowledging the existence of his team and Ronaldo scoring two consecutive hat-tricks, they couldn’t have arrived at the Camp Nou on a better note given their start to the season.

Real’s defence looks much more solid and secure than Barca’s, with Ramos most likely to start barring a physical assault on Mourinho. Pepe, as usual, will be looking to ‘stamp’ his authority on the game. Pun intended! The big question will be who will start – Mesut Ozil or Luka Modric or the latest nominee, Kaka? I personally think Ozil is much more suited to the speedy counter-attacks whereas Modric shines more when he takes control of the game and dictates the play from the centre (which is unlikely against Barca). I think Kaka is out of the question as Ozil and Modric were rested at Amsterdam specifically for the Clasico.

Another sure-shot name on the team sheet would be Angel Di Maria who will look to terrorise Barca’s defence and he could just as well wear war paint to maximise the effect. Normally, Benzema and Higuain present another selection dilemma, but I think Higuain’s misses and Benzema’s sharpness (did you see that bicycle kick?!!) has helped solve that turmoil. But hey, you never know! Mourinho might start Essien at right-back!! :P

Overall, Barca’s make-shift defence tips the scales considerably in favour of Real Madrid. But, football isn’t football if everything goes according to plan, more so in the case of a Clasico.

I just hope whoever wins thoroughly deserves it!! J