Alone at the top and an early claim for La Liga hegemony in a longstanding duopoly. That is Real Madrid’s ultimate target in the latest instalment of El Clasico this Saturday at the Nou Camp against arch rivals FC Barcelona.
Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have dominated and embodied the duopoly, at times perturbed by a rebel in the form of Atletico Madrid, and in times gone by, Valencia and Deportivo La Coruna. In general the dual world is Messi-anic in nature. The little Argentine moulds football, shaping and sculpting the beautiful game, ennobling all the talents of a contemporary superlative athlete, playing the game the modern way – with precision at pace, both breathtaking and breezy.
The clubs reflect their talisman
Many of Messi’s fine traits apply to Ronaldo, though the Argentine is supposedly the bane of Ronaldo’s existence, the vicious cause of his runner-up status in the global footballing hierarchy, so at odds with the Portuguese’s manic compulsion to always be the best. At times, Ronaldo may look cartoonish with his Chippendale-routine celebrations and his other eccentricities, but he is also the ultimate professional, ever toiling, ever striving for self-improvement. The kid from Madeira croons about professional betterment.
They have always held different tactical positions at their clubs, but, at the same time, they have personified what their environment stands for – a micro and macro duopoly. Messi is perceived as a sublime team player, a star symbiotic with the collective. He has blended into a glorious ensemble of telepathic players, who have perfected a Cruyffian vision passed down different generations by Pep Guardiola and today, Luis Enrique.
Ronaldo is the converse at Real Madrid. He is the supreme; individualistic athletic, borderline egocentric, among a cast of ten other players, who have often resembled a fractured, or at least, a manufactured, XI in the megalomaniac universe that whimsical Real president Florentino Perez inhibits. Real Madrid are the sum of eleven individuals. That may be a slight exaggeration – the Galacticos also have a number of blue collars players, the water carriers in the team.
Have Barcelona taken a step back?
Ronaldo and Messi have the power to decide a game at any moment, notwithstanding that, inevitably, they are inching towards the surplus stages of their careers. They lead powerful tridents, the third duopoly in this match. The Gareth Bale-Karim Benzema-Cristiano Ronaldo trio (nicknamed “BBC”) has long made Real Madrid top-heavy, with the team relying too often on flashes of brilliance. But, of late, FC Barcelona have been struggling with the same problem – their South American trident is one superlative, but with a tendency to disrupt the Catalans’ fluent game.
Have Barcelona consciously abandoned their trademark all-sweeping possession obsession and pressing mania, punctuated by ceaseless passing triangulations and other geometric shapes that have so often left opponents both utterly bamboozled and rudderless, in favour for the might of MSN (the trio of Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar)?
In the Enrique era, Barcelona have played with more verticality – the ball is brought from back to front as quickly as possible using short passing combinations. That verticality, instigated by the arrival of Luis Suarez, acts as a supplier of chances for the MSN trio. With the ball at their feet, they are lethal. Neymar and Messi play freely across the front line.
But that newish configuration has entailed a number of problems: the freedom of Neymar and Messi is an overt asset, but imprecision has seeped into Barcelona’s game. The Catalans are not as detailed anymore – possession and pressing are still there, but positional play and options on the ball have lessened. They can still “Tiki-Taka”. They can also simply deliver the ball to MSN. On the eye, the dogmas of Cruyff, preached ad nauseam by Guardiola, have been watered down.
Last weekend, against Real Sociedad, Enrique even switched to a 4-4-2, with Suarez and Messi up front. The experiment backfired as Barcelona scarcely hung on to a draw, another disappointing result in their recent inconsistent run.
Not that Barcelona are in crisis per se. In the last El Clasico, Barcelona pummelled Madrid 4-0, notwithstanding plenty of Catalan pre-match problems. This Madrid remain a contradictio in terminis – fairly inconspicuous, with a modest game, with little conviction, but the results are outstanding. Last May, Madrid won the Champions League. Currently, they top La Liga. Zinedine Zidane is on an unbeaten run of 31 matches, with a remarkable 3-0 away win to city rivals Atletico Madrid. In a game of duopolies, this discrepancy is not unimportant.