It felt like a nice tonic seeing Barca play as they did last night-creativity, goals, and much presence of La Cantera –not least Messi who was in overdrive. Only hours earlier I had to suffer two cule friends of mine moaning till the early hours about how this Barca was tired and had run out of ideas and that we could be reaching the end of a cycle i.e over to you Real Madrid.
I watched Messi , pure poetry in motion, while thinking of what Vicente Del Bosque told me about him recently: “He still plays like a street kid.” And what he meant by that was the spontaneity and skill and palpable enjoyment that this little big man shows in a small space, surrounded by others. Compared to him, Del Bosque also told me, Ronaldo seemed produced by a computer. What he meant by that was the pretty tall boy from Madeira seemed perfectly constructed on and off the pitch, an icon of the digital age, a play-station hero that, properly managed, could deliver with devastating accuracy and effect.
Messi and Ronaldo are once again fighting it out for the Pichichi award as the biggest goal scorers of La Liga. It is likely to be a closer run thing than the title fight itself. If Barca are in recovery mode, Real Madrid are on a seemingly unstoppable roll in the direction of the Spanish league championship- you can see it in Mourinho’s eyes and in the swagger of the players who still celebrate as individuals rather than as a team.
But the sceptics should remember that while it could all end in tears at the Camp Nou, FC Barcelona are in the finals of the King’s Cup and once again well placed to progress towards another final of the Champions League. They are doing this despite the doubt about Pep Guardiola’s future which I suspect is the consequence of personal vanity as much as a question of collective psychology. It is a natural human instinct to want to go out with a bang rather than a whimper . But for Pep to announce now that he was quitting now would have a devastating impact on the morale of his players, far beyond the points that currently separate them from their rivals. Let’s hope, for football’s stake, that he stays. The only job Pep should consider in the longer term is as coach of the Spanish national team, the day Del Bosque retires. Noone should expect the wise old man from Salamanca to do that quite yet.
