My wife had to suffer me as a couch potato on Saturday night as I switched on my satellite TV and watched first Almeria vs Barca followed by Real Madrid vs, Athletic de Bilbao. It hurts me to tell you that having briefly sacrificed my marriage, I temporarily fell asleep in the first match, and temporarily switched to a movie while watching the second.
Why? Well, the first match was not a match in its true sense at all, not a friendly, not an exhibition, not a competition. It was a parody, verging on farce. It was as if eleven amateurs and a bogus coach had been conscripted from a beach game and told to play Barca for ninety minutes, not as players but as extras for a movie. Almeria showed an extraordinary unwillingness to tackle, let alone devise any effective counter-offensive. Its players seemed to lack any motivation, inspiration, skill, imagination-their system petrified, their strategy difficult to justify. Faced with such a total lack of serious opposition, Barca’s goals seemed unreal, as if played out on some imaginary turf, against ghosts, or on some training ground without a coach present. Pity, because some of them should have been goals to remember and an 0-8 victory should be recorded in the history books for different reasons.
In general terms, Almeria proved a very poor test for Barca ahead of much tougher opposition, in Greece on Wednesday, and at the Classico next Monday. Over at the Bernabeu, by contrast there was a tough contest- a real game of football- with Real Madrid showing touches of real mastery and Bilbao both strong in mind and body and skilful. Lllorente was an ever present threat. But it was a match which , for all its excitement, had elements that simply annoyed me like the increasingly narcissistic Ronaldo play acting, and the banned Mourinho taking an increasing direct hand in conducting the team, via his assistant. But far worse was the sight of the inflated chorus of the Ultra Sur element, chanting Mourinho’s name and their Spanish flags in a way would seem to make the consensual, respectful spirit of last summer’s World Cup campaign a distant memory.
This was a week in which El Buitre told us that Mourinho has the full backing of Real Madrid because he was a winner, and Charly Reixach warned that Mourinho might get a worse welcome from local fans on his return to the Camp Nou than Figo did. I am going to the Classico , but plan to eat my ham in a good bocadillo , while still hoping , against the odds, that we shall see some good, fair and decent football. I leave Pep Guardiola with one piece of advice: don’t allow yourself to be provoked by Mourinho and keep your dignity. The world loves you more as a person and a coach than they do Mourinho- and a majority of global viewers will want to see Barca at its best, and winning like your best poem in motion.
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