Messi Free, Winning Dynamics.

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ne of the most active Topics recently, is about the magical performance of Barcelona this season. The team exceeded all expectations and made a bombing start in the liga running twelve points away from the closest follower, cruising to the knock out stages of the Champions’ league after dominating the group that was not of enough quality to bother or to disturb. Yet, what’s more enthralling was accomplishing all that in style, turning their games to Opera shows, symphonies, carnivals or whatever makes you thrilled or touched by the entertainment show produced by naturally gifted yet well organized group of talents

Lot of analysis were published and read, some as an attempt to explain, others to flatter, and some rivalry-driven anti-Barcelona followers tried to blot the bright image of the team eye-catching show so far, and the best way-and probably the only way- was to overlook the impact of the team called Barcelona and spot all the lights instead on Messi as the one who is making all the difference, or labeling Barcelona players as individual performers rather than a harmonized group creating a wonderful team.

I understand Rivalry, so the intention of this article is not -originally- to make responds because I always try to invest the time you spend reading my posts on what’s more fruitful than endless debates. But lately the “Messi dependency” started to make a passive impact on Barcelona fans themselves, being dragged into this debate that spoils the pleasure they have the chance to live while the team is performing like fantasy.

The team must be able –and is able- to win without Messi, if its not proved yet, its simply because this team is still under construction, and there was no time for that to take place. We, Barcelona fans, can discuss this issue as something the team need to be aware of, creating the winning dynamics when Messi is not available, that’s an improvement to what’s already making us walk around the city with pride. Actually, if I have to dig for a negative remark regarding Guardiola performance so far, it’s the fact that he didn’t give enough chances for the team to play without Messi, the players need more games without Messi to get used to the situation, but again its reasonable to start the season with the best available, applying the most powerful strategy to gather enough points needed for Barcelona to lead the table with a wealthy bag of points then we start testing things, All that worth discussion. But to start feeling ashamed of how things are going so far, force me before discussing the Messi-free case to clear up some points, for Barcelona fans before the rivals whom I respect as well and enjoy their Rivalry, even though what follows will take the style of me- a Barcelona fan- putting things in place against any attempt aiming to damage or cover the facts behind Barcelona great season.

So what? That’s my simple respond to all the anti-barcelona noises echoing Messi dependency. I am not sure if it’s considered as a shame or if there are any rules in the game that Barcelona break when they count on Messi to get them a victory. I really don’t figure out the point behind all this debate some people throw in Barcelona fans face. May be Barcelona must release Messi for free, or ask him to move on the field jumping on one leg instead of running or else its an unfair game because the opponents are simply not good enough to match him, so he has to lower his performance because they cant raise up to the challenge of containing him. This case reminds me of the childhood street matches when a team bring an older guy to play for them and how everyone in the other team start to complain.

How realistic is it to say without Messi Barcelona is weak? A team that consist of three key players from the Euro2008 champions including the best player in that tournament, added to the player Cafu crowned as his natural heir, added to one of the best three defensive midfielders in the world, added to the striker with the best scoring record in France national team history, added to the player who got the best African player award so many times that he got sick of it, backed by the most impressive youth academy spreading its bless on the clubs around the continent, without forgetting that more than six national teams’ captains and vices are serving this team, beside under twenty one years international key players. All that count nothing, they are all a bunch of amateurs who live in Messi shadow. Excuse me! The strange thing is that you never hear anyone talking about a Man Utd “Ronaldo dependency” last season, the guy was a scoring machine, and he scored almost twice the number of goals scored by Tevez and Rooney together. And now that we mentioned Man Utd, Messi won a game for barcelona directly after getting in, leading the team to come back from 1-0 defeat to 2-1 victory, it became the Obvious fact that make people see "Messi dependancy" as an unnegociable fact, but I wonder if Man Utd were Sheringham/Solskjaer dependent in 1999, because the two guys joined the game at injury time in the Champions' league final against Bayern, scored two goals leading their team to come back from 1-0 defeat and win the title. It happens in football, live a life!

What’s more interesting is calling Barcelona as a squad of gifted individuals who do not play as a team. First of all I have a very brief respond to that: “So what?” even if I will accept living in denial and agree with that, the team is winning and if “individuality” is working that well why will pep think of changing it? But in fact, Barcelona style is the highest level of team work, it looks easy but those who know just a little about the game can tell you, total football is the most complicated style to play. Even the national team coach of Spain – who is by no mean a Barcelona fan as we all know- said before the friendly game against England: “we need to play Barcelona style”. Individuality? Funny stuff!

Messi is as much Barcelona dependent as the other way, of course he will still be a great player in any club, the same as Barcelona will not relegate to seconda Division – or even to second position in the liga- this year if they had to play without Messi. But the same as Messi raise Barcelona game to another level, Barcelona is also the reason why Messi is now the player he is. Not only they tutored, polished and educated him as a player, but also they introduced him to the world the best way you can imagine. The special criteria Barcelona requires when they pick a player for the wing position fits Messi perfectly. Barcelona style help him to express himself and reveal his gifted talent as he would have never done with any other team through playing as a second striker (his natural position), and its easy to claim now that he would have played as a right wing in any other team, but its simply not true. How often a pure left footed attacking midfielder and goal scorer was used as a right wing outside Catalonia? Barcelona stand as a pioneer using the left footed on the right and the right footed on the left. Even with the national team and though Messi always create solutions, but still he is not the same Messi of Barcelona, where he has an Alves on his right, and a Xavi on his left.

To understand how the team can overcome Messi absence, we need to find the answers for two Questions:

What is the role Messi executes for Barcelona?

1)Dragging attention and keeping more defenders busy offering more space for his team mates.
2)Linking with Alves on the right flank.
3)Earning fouls and generating more free kicks for his team on the edge of the opponent box.
4)Being a key player to break down defensive teams using his dribbling skills to break throw and shake the defenders positioning.
5)Putting high pressure on the ball holder in the opponent side of the field.
6)Scoring goals.

How does Messi absence affect the team performance?

1)Definitely it effect through missing the previously mentioned outputs of a talented player like Messi.

2)It has a psychological impact on the selected players. After all the Messi dependency debates, the players feel a load of pressure on their shoulders to prove it wrong. That pressure leaves a passive impact on their overall performance making them more stressed, which cause a bad output and again it increase the pressure on the players’ shoulders more to make up for the previous failure, pressure-->stress-->Bad performance-->more pressure-->more stress, and so on.

3)The players are used to and adapted with the “Messi-included” group dynamics, and its no surprise that Messi absence make an evident damage on the fluidity of the team offense.

4)The role Messi execute on the field is complicated, not only from the quality aspect, but also because of its diversity, its not easy for any other player to excel perfectly in a role sewed and designed to fit Messi characteristics.

Conclusion:

In order to overcome Messi absence:

Objectives: we need to create a system that keep the opponent defenders busy running for the ball creating spaces for our players to get advantage of to crush the bus parked in front of the opponent keeper, faxing the ball to the box and generating scoring opportunities.

Implementation: Its not enough to create this strategy and explain it to players, we need to put it in practice, first through training sessions then in games, this way players will get used to it as an alternative plan. One win needed, then followed by another will make the players capable to break that psychological pressure and lead them to perform naturally and feel calm to approach the game with or without the presence of Messi.

There are three methods I can think about to fulfill this objective, each fits a special type of games and has its advantages and disadvantages:

1.preparing a direct substitute:

Pep Guardiola tried to do so already, he tested Hleb, Bojan, and against Racing he used Iniesta. While Hleb is not suitable for this mission, he is a better player in midfield, Bojan and Iniesta are quit good to give enough hope they could be considered as Messi back ups. Yet, Bojan need one more year of training in that role before being able to carry this responsibility, Iniesta is definitely the most reliable choice, regardless of the fact that he was not quiet impressive in that game, but he has the qualities needed, or at least he has more quality to do it than any other player in the squad.

If Guardiola will choose this strategy then Iniesta need to play more in that position to get used to this role.

Now as I mentioned above, “The role Messi execute on the field is complicated, not only from the quality aspect, but also because of its diversity, its not easy for any other player to excel perfectly in a role sewed and designed to fit Messi characteristics”, so its not a surprise to suggest that we change the tactical structure to fit the players most in order to achieve the selected objectives when Messi is not available.

2.The pragmatic alternative:

It is inherited from the first Alternative, with an intention to avoid the disadvantages of that alternative. Having Iniesta in Messi position may not pass with no side effects, when Messi is available, Pep Guardiola in his 4-3-3 has two good methods to approach the game: The first option is using Henry on the left wing and instructing him to cut into the Box or else Eto’o get isolated and inefficient there, and asking the left midfielder –Iniesta in general- to open wide and to act as a left wing instead. The second option is to ask the left wing Iniesta/Henry to open the game from the left while starting a midfielder who can make fruitful runs into the box (Keita/Gudjonsen).

Having Iniesta in Messi shoes, may spoil this structure, because Iniesta and Henry are the only proven left wings in the team this season (Though I insist Henry is more efficient when he cut inside and not when he hug the lines), so as long as Hleb is not in a good form to play on the left wing, and knowing that Neither Keita, nor Gudjhonsen can open wide to the left from midfield with the same quality Iniesta does it, that will leave Pep with Henry as the only option on the left wing who will have no choice to cut in, knowing that when Henry plays a sole wing role, its easy to mark him.

So instead of playing a tactic where half the starters are actually playing out of position, Why not reconsidering the tactical structure rather than players natural roles. And that’s why I like switching to the 4-1-3-2 tactical structure when Messi is not available:

a) You will initially have two pure forwards in front of three midfielders and that will help you to execute a faster transition from defense to offense based on direct vertical movement for the ball combined with the natural horizontal passing of Barcelona style.

b) Having three natural midfielders in front of the defensive midfielder and two forwards who are excellent in putting pressure on the opponent defense will increase the possession dominance of your team and will win back the ball fast which will all lead to generate more scoring opportunities.

c) When moving forward, we will have Iniesta acting as a Left midfielder/Left wing, and Alves as a Right midfielder/right wing, while we still have two midfielders in between; this will open the field wide, and will guarantee a smooth fast transition for the ball from side to side.

Our objectives will be fulfilled through this structure, opening the game wide, controlling possession and switching the ball from side to side will shake any defense and create spaces, while your two strikers are there in the box to get advantage of all the crosses from the wings and the assists from the middle.

Messi is not available on the right flank to keep defense busy, but this time the defense has more mess to deal with, having two pure strikers in their box, and a balances Barcelona team attacking from the two flanks at the same time not only linked with the closest player (Messi-Alves structure) but linked together across the field through two midfielders working closely in between and a striker who will open wide when needed knowing that there is still another striker in the box all the time. Messi is not there to penetrate with the ball and score goals, but the ball is penetrating to the box automatically throw crosses and deep assists while the two pure strikers in the box can guarantee scoring enough goals to seal the game, and are more than enough to put continuous pressure on the opponent defense dragging them to make mistakes.

3. The Radical Alternative:

It has always been a question, what’s the best for the team, having Iniesta beside Xavi glued to his midfield role, or using him on the wing? While having him beside Xavi increase Ball possession and dominance in general, it force Henry to play as a wing and make Eto’o the only striker in the box. In the other hand, using Iniesta on the wing or instructing him to open wide deduct some of the possession dominance but make the team more efficient getting advantages of the scoring opportunities created though crosses and passes to the box. What about a structure that keeps Iniesta beside Xavi to dominate possession and ball distribution, beside offering you a player to run the show from the left wing, and save two players for you to use upfront in the opponent Box? That’s the 3-3-2-2 structure suggested here. Three pure central defenders (Abidal-Marquez-Puyol for example), then Alves and Sylvinho playing initially on the same line with Yaya, which will make them closer to the offense operation area, where they act as pure wings, while Iniesta and Xavi control from the middle and Eto’o with Henry act upfront.

Surprisingly if you analyze this option you will notice that it’s not only a more offensive option, but at the same time its better defensively as well, when losing the ball you will have a line of Sylvinho-Yaya-Alves in front of Abidal-Marquez-Puyol, it seems like a Barcelona Bus for me, parked to give Valdes a vacation. While in offense it offer you all the advantages of the second alternative with a better quality because Sylvinho opens the field Wider than Iniesta does in the second alternative, and he is better when he cross the ball, he also shoot from distance, in the other hand and as mentioned before, Iniesta beside Xavi guarantee you high possession share in the game.

The most Vital disadvantage is that it’s an alternative with short life cycle, meaning, you can’t use it for three consecutive games in a raw for example, because Sylvinho need a break of one week between two games to refuel, but it’s a very efficient strategy to play when you decide to bench Messi for a game, and it is good enough to win you games in style. While for a long period Messi absence –God forbids! I will go for the second alternative, the pragmatic one, anytime.

Regardless of the extend of truth in "Messi Dependency" situation, we are not doomed to live with it. This squad have enough quality to go hunting for titles even when Messi is not available. Are we already "Messi INdependent"? We all know we are not there yet, not completely at least, but there is no reason prevent this team from accomplishing that objective. I am not sure what kind of solutions Guardiola has for the team to start performing well when Messi is not a starter, I am not trying to predict his moves – I don’t even think he has that third alternative in mind- but I am proving that there are other alternatives beside being Messi dependent, but we need to work for it, and when Guardiola start to play more games without Messi even when he is available, that will be a sign for me that we are on the right path.

Ramzi Tanani