Tales of the Imagination


As Barca limbers up for its serial encounters with its arch rival, I thought it worth commenting on the rather worrying urban myth that has been fuelled in recent times by Real Madrid fanatics.

Out of respect to both sporting institutions, and weary of falling foul of libel laws, I will have to phrase this as delicately as I can-but suffice it to say that the quite unsubstantiated and untrue suggestion is that Barca has only managed to have got to where it has  got to-record results across three major competitions with minimum renewal of the squad and extraordinary endurance by some of its key players- thanks to some imagined help, not necessarily  in the form of Divine intervention.

Now not only does this taste of sour grapes  (and clearly false) but also demonstrates a lack of understanding of human psychology. Any team is stimulated by success, not least when it is achieved not by any one individual but by the balance and variety of talented individuals working for each other and the collective spirit that this generates. One for all and all for one.  Moreover teams can be inspired by managers who are worthy of respect themselves and solution focused.

A bit of history may be worth recalling here. The arrival in 1958 of Helenio Herrera as Barca’s new manager marked the beginning of one of the most dynamic periods in the club’s history. During his stint at the club, Herrera took the team and shook it to its roots. He used his powers of psychology to motivate a club that all too often had stumbled under the burden of its own history, too easily believing  that games were won or lost at the bequest of a conspiratorial government, or poor referee, rather than because of the relative strength of  the competing teams (Barca vs. Real Madrid).

The ensuing transformation in the way that Barca saw itself and confronted every match was such as to raise suspicions beyond Catalonia. There was talk of trickery, secret rituals, and drugs. Some of the more hostile journalists even dubbed Herrera the “pharmacy cup coach.” The suggestion was that the team’s medical staff had their bags stuffed with every conceivable performance-enhancing substance. It was all nonsense of course.

But I suspect we are in for a great deal of psychology in the comings days, and not all of it positive, as well as some extremely competitive football.   It’s thus going to take, once again,  all of Pep Guardiola’s genius as a tactician and motivator to bring the best out of his team if Barca is to hold off  what I believe is Mourinho’s and his team’s ultimate double ambition: a win at the Bernabeu on Saturday before reaching Wembley and conquering. Both sides know that in a season like this one, winning the Copa Del Rey only will provide a consolation prize. And let us not forget that it is Mourinho not Guardiola that is the Special One or so the Portuguese once claimed.

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