I still reckon their defensive closing down doesn't get the credit it deserves - it can be very aggressive, and is only possible because they play keep ball for 70% of the game.
Absolutely!
It has reached greater heights than this season, but imo that's the most impressive part of their game. It's the reason why this typical analysis the press regurgitates about player A vs. Mascherano or how will the weakened defence of Barça with 3 regulars sidelined cope with the centre forwards of team Y is meaningless crap. Opposition strikers are generally chasing hoofed balls on the wrong area of the pitch because the pressure is so intense and all the players, from Messi to Valdes are so good at off the ball positioning. (Mascherano for example gave an inteview the other day saying how so much of what he took for granted on how to play the game had to be forgotten and new principles relearned. Such as get away from where the ball is rather than the opposite in both attack and defence.)
Yet...
...their defence wouldn't work so well if their possession game wasn't so good. Dani Alves plays almost as a winger. Piqué charges forward often. Occasionally they have 6 or 7 players inside or at the edge of the box. That means loads of space behind their backs that could be exploited in counter attacks. But the opposition rarely does it. Because they rarely have enough players in position to do so. Because they know that as soon as they lose the ball they'll be doomed if they're not covering every inch of their half or last third of the pitch.
So I think over the past 3 or years there has been a kind of self feedback loop: Barcelona is technically brilliant, always finds a pass, always brings the ball near the goal and has the best player in the world. So, as their status as the ultimate football machine ever assembled grew, other teams became less and less adventurous, the games are spent more and more at near the goal line of the opposition, with more and more defenders packed in a small area. Therefore they pass more and more around.
For that reason - their reputation and the psychological effect this has on other teams - I think they'll be winning and titles games beyond what they should. It will take a while for teams to realise Barça is no longer as powerful.
In fact, I sometimes think if we're not living that period already. If you compare them to, say, 2 or 3 years ago, the dependence on Messi was never so immense. You could argue they'd be way out of contention in the league at least if Messi hadn't been carrying them around scoring 1 or 2 goals in almost every game for months.
This dependence on Messi is in fact very deliberate and planned a long time ago by Guardiola. I don't know if it came by option or necessity but it's the reason why the likes of Eto'o and Ibrahimovic were dismissed. Their presence was incompatible, both in terms of playing style and in terms of egos, with Guardiola's decision of building the whole team around Messi and thus having to change the latter's role and position and the team's attacking formation.
The other reason why I'm suspecting they might be on the limit is their performance against Chelsea. Not their attacking performance but indeed their defensive one and the quality, or lack thereof, of the pressing. I'm not talking about the goal itself either, but on many occasions Chelsea were able to hold the ball and come forward with much more ease than Barça would allow in the recent past. It's just that Chelsea never committed enough players to try and do more damage.
Otoh, they might just have been tired of the relentless pursuit of Madrid in the league and thinking they have ti play 2 more times in less than a week against Real Madrid and Chelsea again.
It's not easy at all. Try playing in a team with a few friends and doing that. It takes years of practice. And it's compeltely maddening to play against. And, perhaps on TV it isn't noticeable, but if you are in a stadium and you can see the sheer size of a football pitch and watch a team do that all across it, you suddenly realise they're damn good.
I think it's the fact they make it look so easy that makes those passes look, well, easy side passes. But in fact what they're doing, or what they can do routinely if needed, is pass the ball around on 1st touch
under pressure. Not all of them of course, but the likes of Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets and Piqué (possibly the spine of the team, from one end to the other) can do it all day long. No one else can do this. Not even a world class player educated at their academy, but only recently returned after many years abroad, like Fabregas is comfortable at it.
I find it beautiful although I admit I also find it lacking and limited on many other ocasions. It could also be interpreted, paradoxically, as a defensive style, a new type of catenaccio.
Only whereas other teams in the past have used a very narrow approach to frustrate and dominate by using, either their massive physical or tactical superiority, Barcelona are the pioneers of doing the same thing via their technical superiority. So there you have it. Of the 'holy trinity' of football -
athleticism,
tactics and
technique, they alone explored the last aspect to the utmost level, in the sense they've created a paradigm, so to speak, entirely dedicated to it (like, e.g., Herrera's Inter was a tactical masterpiece, or some of the northern european club teams of the 70s a product of athleticism).
But because technique is so much harder to perfect than tactics and physique, and as I've argued in this forum before (I think) I suspect Barcelona might be a one of a kind, a product of a special moment and special talents and might not change the face of football as miuch as other revolutionary teams did in the past.
That said I'd prefer another team to win the competitions they're playing this year for the simple reason I cannot stand the sense of moral entitlement some of their fans and players distill, as if they alone played the only morally acceptable brand of football.
I'll miss them when, eventually, they go away though. Like I said, they can be a thing of beauty and one of the reasons many people got tired of them is because they've banalized beauty.
Ok, here's my collection of disjointed, lazy saturday afternoon, thoughts about the subject, probably incoherent. Sorry about the long post.
for sort of smilie?
:worship: :bowdown: 
