Global Soccer
Suddenly, Barcelona Looking All Too Human
Albert Gea/Reuters
Raphael Varane rising high as
he headed in Real Madrid’s final goal in its 3-1 victory at Barcelona.
Madrid advanced, 4-2, on aggregate.
By ROB HUGHES
Published: February 27, 2013
BARCELONA — Barcelona chose the wrong time and place to goad Real Madrid.
The sides were level after their first match in the Copa Del Rey
semifinal, with the second leg Tuesday at the Camp Nou. Barcelona, which
has an almost unassailable lead in La Liga, handed out 90,000 red, blue
and yellow flags to its fans to wave into the faces of the Real players
as they entered the arena.
The intent was clear. The Catalans were mocking the Madridistas.
Their hubris was destroyed by white heat. Real squeezed the virtue out of Lionel Messi
and company, and hit them on the break. Two goals from Cristiano
Ronaldo and a towering header from the 19-year-old defender Raphaël
Varane exploited yawning holes in the home defense. Jordi Alba’s token
goal for Barça in the dying minutes could not disguise this emphatic and
humbling dethroning of the King’s Cup holder.
Tactically, it was no contest. José Mourinho may soon depart Real
Madrid, but his hand was all over this game. Madrid’s Portuguese coach
is the acknowledged master at setting up a team to deny their opponents
the time or the space they need to flourish.
And Ronaldo, Mourinho’s countryman, is the perfect athlete to lead on counterattacks.
Madrid sat back with close-knit lines of defenders clad in white. They
absorbed every run Barcelona attempted, and they broke time and time
again with raids as swift and as deadly as any you will ever see.
Often, the trigger to these counters was Mesut Ozil, the willing
provider for Ronaldo, or Ángel Di María, the fast and ferociously
hard-working winger.
Their target was obvious. On his last five visits, Ronaldo had always scored in the Camp Nou.
It took him 13 minutes this time. The danger signals were all around
when he strode into the penalty box, with only Gerard Piqué in pursuit.
Ronaldo was too quick, and too well balanced, for the defender. The
Madrid forward moved to go inside, and Pique anticipated that. But when
Ronaldo then dodged outside, Pique overstretched, and quite clearly his
foot caught the shin of his opponent.
It was like a rhino trying to corner a cobra that was too fast, too slippery to be caught.
Giving Ronaldo a penalty kick is a near-certain invitation for him to
score. He did, with a low, precise shot that no keeper could reach.
Last week, Barcelona lost, 2-0, in Milan, and Pique admitted afterward
to reporters: “Maybe we are not as good as everybody says.” Against
Ronaldo, he proved his point.
As the uncommonly cold night in Barcelona ensued, it became painfully
apparent that Barça, for all its talents, had no game plan, no real
alternative to just plugging away with its pass-and-move routines,
believing that sooner or later chances would come.
They seldom did. Xavi Hernández, the most consistently creative
midfielder in the modern game, was as quiet at home as he was in Milan.
Maybe his recent hamstring injury is not completely healed, or maybe he
is tired mentally as much as physically.
Is Andrés Iniesta, too? Even Messi? Why not? They are human, and they
cannot forever reproduce extraordinary feats three times in a week.
Tuesday was planned resistance to their charms. The situation is
exacerbated by the suspicion that while Barcelona Coach Tito Vilanova
remains in New York recuperating from throat surgery, his fill-in, Jordi
Roura, is not so much a coach as a medium.
Vilanova is in touch by telephone, even to the coach bench during games.
But management by remote control will not outwit Mourinho.
At this level, we might think, a team as good as Barcelona should know
how to get the best out of themselves. Maybe they do. Maybe Tuesday did
not mean as much to Barcelona as it clearly did to Real, for whom the
King’s Cup might be their best shot at a trophy.
Watching at the Camp Nou was Alex Ferguson, whose Manchester United side
will oppose Real Madrid in the Champions League next week. The teams
stand 1-1 after the first leg in Madrid, an identical situation to the
Barça-Real Copa Del Rey semifinal.
And if any manager knows Ronaldo better than Mourinho, it is Ferguson,
who led the forward from 18 to maturity at United.
Ferguson nodded sagely when Ronaldo scored the second, and decisive,
goal Tuesday. Di María created it with a matador’s sweep past Carles
Puyol and a shot that Barcelona’s goalie, José Manuel Pinto, deflected.
There was Ronaldo, through anticipation and not luck. He cushioned the
ball on his chest and dispatched it across the line before Pinto could
get back on his feet.
Both goals came on the break, and both turned deep defense into incisive attack.
The third was confirmation of how high and how handsome the young
Frenchman Varane can time his jumps to corner kicks. Pique and Puyol
failed to match Varane in the air.
“We lacked effectiveness,” conceded Roura. “Real Madrid was far superior, but we will overcome this bump.”
Will they? There comes a time when every team, even the best of the
best, wearies. It appeared in the first half of this season that
Barcelona, hurt after losing its Spanish league title to Madrid, was
even more consistent than before.
Pep Guardiola, the coach of the previous four seasons, left admitting
that training the outstanding team of this decade was a draining
responsibility. Perhaps Guardiola knew that Barcelona’s tenure at the
top could not be infinite, and possibly he foresaw nights like Tuesday?
Guardiola is taking his sabbatical from soccer in New York, the very
place where Vilanova, his erstwhile assistant, is having treatment.
Barça’s president, Sandro Rosell, planned to fly there Wednesday to
visit his sick coach.
“We miss Tito as a person and as a professional,” Rosell said. “Jordi
Roura continues and we have a lot of confidence in him. The team
deserves to be trusted because it has been together 41/2 years, and in
football it is impossible to win everything.”
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