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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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