I watched Revista’s preview of El Gran Clasico.
Sky’s Revista de la Liga is my favourite football show.
It’s a TV magazine show that’s colourful and succinct. Host Mark Bolton, with Guilem Balague and Graham Hunter, two smart journalists, summarise and comment on the week’s events in Spanish football, paying particular regard to the latest backstage news, gossip and politics at the two big clubs.
It’s an entertaining, fast-moving show with a format that has been honed. Balague and Hunter are informative and their chat is far superior to most of Sky’s football coverage, which is 95% hype, hogwash and cliches from tabloid hacks, players and ex-players.
In recent programmes Balague has been saying that while Cristiano Ronaldo has been out with an ankle injury, coach Pellegrini has made the team more solid and more effective on the counter-attack.
This week he said Real Madrid are more direct now. Also, they don’t need to play well to win, they’re essentially a counter-attacking side who are better away from home. By contrast, he said Barcelona need to play well to win a game.
Balague pointed out that Barcelona handled Cristiano Ronaldo very well in the Champions League Final when they outplayed Man United and won 2-0. A fair comment but CR played very immaturely, trying to blast early shots from 25 yards. United did not give Barcelona a game. This is totally different. Everyone thinks Real Madrid will give them a game.
Now, coming to the Nou Camp, Cristiano is not really match fit. But his ambition and desire are huge. Like Messi, he can’t be kicked out of a game. He says he enjoys being the world’s most expensive player and you believe him. We know he can’t give an £80 million performance after 55 days out but he might score a £25 million goal.
Trouble is, Cristiano is elemental, a whirlwind, a natural powerhouse, a force of nature, a footballer who does everything : 60-yard power dribbles, 40-yard power shots, headers from 10 yards, free-kicks from 30 yards. Sir Alex realised you can’t integrate a force of nature. You can only let him do what he wants to do, which is more than almost any footballer in history, so you supply him, you get Rooney and Tevez to play unselfishly, to subordinate themselves to him, to allow an awesome gladiator to score 42 (forty-two!) goals in one season.
I reckon it will be more down to Kaka and Higuain on Sunday.
Although the latest rumour is that Benzema will start, not Higuain. Benzema is a brainy player with size and power, more of a Cantona or a Zidane. He needs to be in a team who give him the ball a lot – but that has not happened.
Gonzalo Higuain is a stocky box player who is almost 22. A pure poacher, a clinical finisher, nothing like Benzema. His goal against FC Zurich was typical. As Kaka got the ball in a position where Kaka likes to shoot, Higuain did not run offside. He waited. If Kaka has a shot, fair enough. If Kaka gives him a short pass, it will be a good one. That’s all a striker wants, a good pass. Higuain waited, and when the pass came, he banged in the only goal of the game.
Clearly, Pellegrini’s Real Madrid are a work-in-progress. He was hired to seize back control of the team from Raul and Guti and he’s doing that rather well.
His Villarreal were a possession team who were good tactically because they had to be good tactically. Now, his Real Madrid team has to add to the club’s fading heritage and fulfill colossal expectations.
Balague said Pellegrini has yet to find the best role for Kaka. Because of that, Brazil’s best player has been criticised in the media.
Graham Hunter, who has lived in Barcelona for eight years, made an important point when he said that the Nou Camp crowd is much more nervous on these occasions than the Bernabeu crowd is. Hunter said Barca haven’t played well all season and are slight underdogs, but can still win.
For Pep Guardiola, I think, it’s too much about Catalonia, a small country, versus the rulers of a bigger country.
There will be a lot of tension on Sunday. Barca’s work ethic is so strong that there may not be many goals. I saw my gambling pal Tony this morning and he said, “Under two and a half, both teams to score, is the best bet.”
It was interesting to hear Graham Hunter say, “Pep will pick the players that are fittest, bravest and readiest for the battle.”
What do I think? Well, when Argentina were suffering, Messi was suffering. That was obvious. For me, the difference between the Messi of 2007-2008 and the Messi of 2008-2009 was that he became a poacher as well as a dribbler. He sniffed out chances as well as made them, got on the end of crosses as well as supplied them. As Barcelona roared through an all-conquering season, Lionel Messi became the compete footballer.
Still impish, still uncannily resourceful, still humble as well as brave, Messi was the main man of 2009, while Cristiano played out his final season at Man United, perfecting his free-kicks and waiting to join his dream team, as agreed the summer before.
President Florentino Perez’s response to Joan Laporta’s treble was to borrow obscene sums of money and sign Benzema, Xabi Alonso, Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo.
In a way, galatico football is a bit like Sven’s England : pick your big names, don’t bother about balance, hope one of your stars will win the game for you. It’s really all about power and finishing. Looking at it now, they don’t need Benzema. If you buy Kaka and Ronaldo, you don’t buy Benzema as well. But they bought Benzema to stop Man United signing him.
Like most people, I think football is a team game, not a name game, so I’ve always had reservations about trying to hire a bunch of superstars to make an exciting movie without a good script. When Perez signed Zidane, I thought Real Madrid were the only team in the world who didn’t need Zidane. In those days Perez bought one superstar every summer, not four at once. In time, Zidane played well and the team won trophies but not as many as Perez expected.
Since Messi and Ibrahimovic both trained normally on Friday, speculation surrounds them. Those two play very well together. Are they fit enough to start this game against the league leaders? Barcelona are at home and the more coherent side. Real Madrid are usually racked by egos, back-biting and paranoia.
Barcelona might win it by one goal. We’ll know more when we see the line-ups.
Myself, I’d use Cristiano as a sub in this one. The Clasico has come two weeks too soon for him, really. He can regain the title for Real Madrid, certainly. But he can’t regain it on Sunday