Interview – A Barca Fan’s View

By: Wayne Farry | May 27th, 2009

As you have probably seen, or may not have, Taylor and I did a mammoth preview yesterday. If that hasn’t whetted your appetite for tonight’s match buildup I’ve been talking to Isaiah from the Barcelona Offside over the past few days to try and get a die-hard Barca fan’s view on the Champions League Final. So sit back, relax and listen to the other side of the argument as you read Isaiah rather unsurprisingly profess his love for Yaya whilst dismantling many of my misguided (read drunk) questions.

1. Barca are missing most of their backline for the Final, will this effect them much considering their attacking game? And what measures should they take to prevent United from taking advantage?

Missing Rafa Márquez, Eric Abidal, and Dani Alves is obviously a blow, despite El Kaiser not being a first choice starter thanks to Piqué’s absurdly rapid ascendancy to the top of the chart. It’s as surprising to me as anyone else that this has happened, of course, but it’s true that Rafa is no longer the second most important cog in the blaugrana defensive machinery. The loss we’ll feel most acutely is assuredly that of Dani Alves, whose petulant display against Chelsea in the second leg insured that we don’t have enough cover at the back and will have to either shift someone there (Yaya) or start someone with very little experience (Cáceres). Yaya filled in sufficiently against Chelsea, but was sorely missed in midfield. Puyol can play right back and provide a large portion of Alves’ forward forays, but he isn’t as young as he used to be, so some of the overlaps will go begging, leaving Messi to deal with more defenders than he would like.

I’ll trade you a Darren Fletcher for an Eric Abidal. Two undeserved red cards cancel each other out, right? Sylvinho claims he can stop C-Ronaldo, but I would prefer Abidal’s combo of pace and physicality to Sylvinho’s guile and, well, lack of pace. The key to Barça’s defense is their ability to get forward along the wings, allowing Iniesta and Xavi to fill the middle channels and giving both Henry and Messi freedom against only one defender at a time. The creativity will be squarely on Iniesta and Xavi, rather than slightly diluted between Iniesta, Xavi, and Alves, who was just finding his form when he was injured in practice the other day and will miss what little there is left of the season, anyway. Our best back line would be Alves, Puyol, Piqué, Abidal, but I think we’re likely to see Puyol, Yaya, Piqué, Sylvinho. I’d prefer Cáceres, Puyol, Piqué, Sylvinho to keep Yaya in the midfield, but Keita should be a good stand-in there.

2. Who do you think are Barca’s key men for the Final and how should United deal with them?

Xavi and Messi are probably people you can peg as “key men”, but, really, a lot will be riding on whether or not Iniesta and Henry are fit enough to play. I have my doubts about that, but only wild horses on steroids will keep Henry from playing in what is, effectively, his last chance to win a CL. He can’t have forgotten the feeling of the 2006 final and no doubt he doesn’t want to sit on the sideline either.

But it’s Xavi, really, that is the key to the game. Lock down Xavi and despite Iniesta’s brilliance, the Barça offense splutters, at least a bit. The offensive game goes through the midfield, always, meaning Xavi’s passing is vital to getting moves going or recovering the ball. He covers more ground than anyone else (from either side, typically), so his work rate is phenomenal, but if the opposing side can force that work to be done more fruitlessly, it causes the rest of the team to run more as well. He is the fulcrum of the Barça pendulum, so causing problems there will always cause problems elsewhere.

3. As a Barca fan, who do you feel are United’s biggest threats?

I’ll go with the obvious C-Ronaldo, but also with Vidic. Set pieces are where we are most vulnerable, though Piqué’s presence is a big help in that department, as is the lack of Dani Alves (how many 5’7” men can you field at once? Barça are looking to put out 12 sometime soon). Replacing Alves with Puyol and moving Yaya back into defense helps shore up some of the size problems, but it remains that most of the time, C-Ronaldo doesn’t put the ball up for grabs, preferring to go for goal. Off of corners, it’ll be Vidic that provides the danger, I would think. On the break, it’s going to be C-Ronaldo and Rooney combining that will be effective, but it really is set pieces that could be the death of Barça.

4. Where do you think this game will be won and lost?

The midfield. There is no question about it. Barça plays both offense and defense primarily in the midfield, using pressure to cause turnovers and then quick passes to get through the defense that has been left stranded. Messi’s first goal and Barça’s third in the most recent Clásico is a perfect example of how Barça operates its defense-to-offense scheme. If Xavi and Iniesta get up full heads of steam, it becomes very, very hard to stop them because they have ESP-like attachments to each other, meaning they can play seemingly nonsensical balls to each other and suddenly the defense is split wide open. I would like to say that Yaya will be in the defensive midfield spot, but I just don’t see that happening, so it’s up to Keita to be the rock in the middle. He’s capable, of course, but he’s no 6’4” behemoth of a man-mountain capable of welding steel with his mind. Not that I have a mancrush or anything.

The key to unlocking our midfield solidity is probably just to bypass it, using a target man as the focal point, like Chelsea did. I don’t know if this is something United are really able to do at Chelsea’s level (Berbatov is no Drogba, though that might be a blessing in disguise if the former ends up one-on-one with Valdes), and it does require extreme solidity in defense to resist Barça’s ever-growing attacks (some call it desperation) while maintaining at least one attacker in our defensive end who also must be capable of battling physically with Piqué and Yaya throughout the night.

If Busquets starts, the game is going to go ManU’s way because he’s not ready to take on the defensive midfield role, as he showed against Chelsea. Pep’s hand may be forced if Iniesta and/or Henry can’t make the starting 11, but it’s the worst possible move, except maybe putting Hleb out there as central defender…or midfielder…or forward…
Will Alex Ferguson come out to play or will he sit back and absorb pressure, hoping to hit Barça on the break? If he sends his team out to play, I think it’s over and over early because there is no passing game like Barça’s, but if he decides to sit back a bit, then we’ll see a much cagier affair that could go either way.

5. Barca come into this game on the back of some poor La Liga form. Considering it was mainly the reserves in those matches, will this have any bearing on their confidence?

I wouldn’t say we have poor La Liga form simply because the last two times the first team played, they came away with a total of four points against the #2 and #5 team in the league, then gave debuts to several players and only lost against Mallorca because a certain Cameroonian striker forgot his shooting boots that day. I think what’s more important than the results of the games (except maybe for Samu) is the match fitness. I think resting the entire first team against Mallorca may have been a mistake, but we’ll only know at the end of Wednesday if that’s going to be the thought or not. As we say in the Barça-centric world, In Pep We Trust. And until he shows us that he isn’t to be trusted, we’ll continue to do so. There maybe be a few minutes where “sharp” isn’t the word to describe the team, but I’m fairly confident that those minutes will end fairly quickly as the team finds its legs and begins to play its brand of soccer.

6. What do you think of the measures being taken by the officials in Rome to curb any possible fan trouble?

Fan trouble? In Rome? What? Not even possible. To be honest, I haven’t heard much about the precautions/measures being taken, but imagine it’ll be mostly good-natured since Barça isn’t known for being particularly rowdy, though if the Boixos Nois show up and meet some ManU hooligans, there could be some old-fashioned teeth-kickin’…and I don’t imagine the skinhead blaugrana twerps will come out the better looking of the two sides.

7. Are you intrigued as I am to see the most gifted young manager in the world go up against the greatest manager of all time?

Well, no, I guess I’m not because I don’t think of Pep as the most gifted young manager in the world nor do I think of Alex Ferguson as the greatest manager of all time. They’re both obviously very good, but they’re doing a lot with a lot. Were this Xerez vs Sheffield United in the CL final with budgets akin to an MLS team, then you could claim that these are the greatest managers of all time, but these are the two richest clubs in the world going head-to-head with names like Messi, Rooney, Xavi, and C-Ronaldo. My mother could win a game or two with them.

8. What will tonight’s score be?

2-1 Barça takes home the cup. Goals by Messi and Eto’o, but Henry will have a game for the ages despite his knee problem. It’s a 50/50 affair, though, in the end, which is exactly how it should be.

So, wow he showed me, huh?! If there was to be an example to show what state you shouldn’t be in to conduct an interview, this is it. But Isaiah came up with some great answers. Apart from the final answer, of course.