Okay. I’ll keep this simple: if you haven’t been watching Barcelona out-pass and out-score all before them over the past two months, you need to repent. Seriously. And I’m not just talking about that 5-0 trouncing of Jose Mourinho’s lot at the Nou Camp the other week. That was just the icing on the cake, given that it was against their biggest opponents, and even more significantly, against the coach responsible for their Champions League exit last season.
The thing is, Barca have been doing this week in week out for the past couple of months, racking up an amazing 29 goals along the way and conceding just two – almost 600 minutes apart – in their last six league games. I know, it’s easy to dismiss Barca’s impressive run if you haven’t been watching – especially if you have concluded that, because La Liga is a two-horse race, the rest of the league isn’t up to scratch. Nothing could be farther from the truth of course; trust me, it’s no mean feat to bash five goals past local rivals Espanyol, as Barca did in hostile territory last Saturday; or to put three past Villareal and five past Sevilla.
But it’s not just Barca’s numbers that make this team deserving of your attention. It’s the manner in which they have gone about their business. For me, this Barcelona incarnation is playing the very best football seen anywhere on the planet in the last twenty years at the very least. Yes, better than Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan, Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona “Dream Team”, Louis van Gaal’s Ajax and any of Man Utd’s impressive teams of the last two decades.
This is history in the making, folks. We’ll be talking about this team for years to come, kind of like how the old-timers go on about Real Madrid’s five-time European champions; or Brazil’s sparkling 1970 vintage. It’s not just that they pass the ball better than any team we’ve seen in eons; or that they all seem to be on the same wavelength. It’s the mind-blowing speed at which they carry on that sets them apart. It’s not just that they boast the best players on the planet in Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi; it’s the manner in which those big names all graft and sacrifice for the greater good of the team. It’s not just that their patient, creative tiki taka style often results in loads of often spectacular goals; they’re actually pretty good at keeping goals out too. I suppose the simplest way to describe this team, at least for you Premiership-addicted anglophiles out there, is to say they are the team that Arsenal would like to become when they grow up – and Arsenal fans should take that as a compliment.
For all that high praise though, Barcelona may well end the season empty handed. Only two points separate them from Real Madrid in La Liga, and the minefield that is the Champions’ League is pretty hard to predict – as we saw last year when “the best team in Europe” knocked out the best team in Europe. They even drew 0-0 with Athletic Bilbao in the Cope del Rey on Tuesday night – proving they are human after all.
I’m pretty confident they’ll see off Real’s challenge again, but it really doesn’t matter one bit; Pep Guardiola’s team is putting on a show for the ages right now. If you’ve been missing it, it’s time to get with it.
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