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Phillip Zulu in LEEDS, England
THE recent poor show in the European Champions League quarter-final by Barcelona against Bayern Munich last Friday is a huge embarrassment on the advancement of the modern game by the Spanish La Liga football giants who epitomise the Johan Cruyff Total Football Philosophy.
Barcelona were mauled 8-2 by a rampaging Bayern Munich in a one-sided encounter.
It was too terrifying to watch Gerard Pique struggling to balance and contain the marauding Gnabry’s direct runs at the aged Barca defence, this defence is one of the worst in world football and to imagine most of these defenders just got contract extensions of more than three years, yet their legs are telling a different story on the pitch as they simply run no more.
Pique should do the honest thing and renegotiate his contract and simply quit the club, allowing a transition to take place by being honest with himself.
Pique is not Sergio Ramos who still has that matador instincts of a bullfighter in his game, but Pique should have left Barca three years ago in all fairness. He has held the club hostage, his other compatriots in this legion of doom are Sergio Busquets, Sergio Roberto and Alaba, as the sense of entitlement to play for the Spanish national team comes along by playing for Barcelona.
Another disaster was witnessed in the midfield of the fallen giants when Vidal Arturo was virtually non-existent and looked more like an alien on the pitch with his extraterrestrial weirdo hair style.
Antoine Griezmann is another huge flop that needs serious scrutiny when one considers that he was bought for £120 million, contrast that figure with Joao Felix who replaced him at Atletico Madrid and the sad truth is that after watching the game against Bayern, more heads needs to roll from the boardroom right into the pitch.
Simple questions should be asked as to how on earth they could sell Adama Traore for a mere €10 million, but the speed king has become a world beater ready to play for the biggest clubs in world football at a huge transfer.
Barca’s demise is a free fall entitlement that has gone wrong when the current crop of local players took it for granted that they must simply be there for as long as they wish.
The Barca trademark of being the technocrats of the most beautiful game has shredded into smithereens, their hubristic deja vu of winning almost every Champions League encounter was laid bare with a scoreline that resembles a Sunday league grassroots junior development scoresheet.
The mighty Barca is now a shambolic distortion of what Cruyff perfected, the current crop of players and their manager, who resembled a bored pub coach ready to go for a few more beers after a thrashing, is testament of how things have fallen at that club.
Quique Setien’s touchline body language was criminal, pathetic and languid as his troops looked out of depth in every step of the conquest.
He surrendered on the very first minute of the game, he is the opposite of Frank Rijkaard who was so passionate on the touchline during his tenure at the Catalonia giants.
I have watched the worst management style in world football and this last Friday’s battering of Barcelona should be a record maul of the worst kind that should see an exodus of the too many tired legs of the 30 years-plus players that are past their sell by date.
At this juncture, we also need to reflect on the possible demise of our national team in Zimbabwe on the same parallel lines if we start to consider the very same dynamics that also exist in our squad as we are slowly getting more numbers of the ageing players in their 30s plus.
Having a few is good for having experienced guys to guide the emerging talents that are coming through the ranks of our national teams. We have a lot to learn from this Barca thrashing, we must take serious lessons of how modern football is managed when one looks at the Bayern Munich squad that had all the qualities of emerging, mature and experienced talents that combined so well in all the requirements of the game as they hammered mercilessly a tired-looking Barca that could not even hang on the ropes after waves of hard blows right up to end of the game.
Zimbabwe has a very good base to select from and with hindsight, we hope the Barca calamities won’t stalk our territory.
One could be tempted to argue that both teams from Germany — Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig — had a very good opportunity to prepare for this tournament as their Covid-19 pandemic scare was the lowest in the world and they had to strategise their training programmes in line with the national health guidelines that allowed the German Bundesliga to be the first league in the world to resume any training activities.
It was a case of the pretenders against the astute fighting machinery that never felt intimidated by the presence of Messi and Suarez.
Messi as the world’s greatest player, he has seen his stock dented by below par fellow teammates who should be in retirement or playing for lesser leagues in the US or China on testimonial grounds.
Online Reporter