They like to think they do things the right way at FC Barcelona, and they will tell you as much.
But if the Camp Nou outfit can be said to have taken on a superiority complex in recent years they have at least come by it honestly.
For while Xavi Hernandez may crow about a type of football that is somehow finer, more elevated than that of their opponents, and while referees are routinely mobbed by men in the Blaugrana shirt arguing a particular case (a sense of being “in the right” must be taught as rigorously at La Masia as short passes and quick touches), more often than not Barcelona are, in fact, going about their business in a higher, better way.
They know it. And that they know it tends to generate equal parts irritation and jealously among their opponents. But it should also inspire replication.
The latest thing the Catalans have done right is appoint Gerardo Martino manager following the exit of Tito Vilanova due to illness.
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While coaches with bigger names and European pedigree would no doubt have lined up at the door for the chance to work with Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Lionel Messi, club president Sandro Rosell went into the hiring process with only a single name in mind — that of Martino, a 50-year-old Argentine who worked wonders at Newell’s Old Boys following a successful five years with Paraguay’s national team.
Newell’s, incidentally, is where Messi cut his teeth as an eight-year-old and where Martino, himself, starred as a creative midfielder under Marcelo Bielsa in the early 1990s. Martino was one of Bielsa’s favourite players at the Rosario ground that now bears the latter’s name, and he has brought to Barcelona not only his mentor’s stylistic preferences, but also his sense of pragmatism.
“We are comfortable with the 4-3-3 that Barcelona have used lately,” he told reporters upon his presentation, adding, “The pressure and rapid recovery of the ball is one of the traits we most want to maintain in the team.”
He backed up his remarks by overseeing an astonishingly dominant display against Levante in his first Primera Division match on Sunday, a 7-0 win.
At no time against the Valencia side did Barcelona spend more than a few seconds without the ball. Maintaining 78 per cent possession, they limited their opponents to a passing rate of just 64 per cent and an average pass distance of 22 metres — numbers that would indicate the direct, long-ball approach Levante were forced to adopt given the scarcity of their touches.
And leading the aggressive, high-pressing system was none other than Messi, who Martino, following the match, insisted was the most important ball-winner in the team.
Xavi also addressed reporters shortly after the final whistle and offered some useful insight into his new manager’s training methods.
“Martino is a serious and hard-working coach who is close to the players. Everything we do is consensual,” he said.
The 33-year-old also claimed his side’s tactical preparation had slipped last season, saying, “Last year we trained very little tactically when Tito (Vilanova) was away (ill). As a result we lacked our usual automatism.”
That automatism was very much back against Levante, although as Bayern Munich proved last season Barcelona still can’t expect to, in Xavi’s own words, “go all out to win” against every opponent. That lack of a “Plan B” left the Catalans looking unusually vulnerable against a Bayern side that quickly found them out, and it cost them dearly against Chelsea in the 2011-12 Champions League semifinals as well.
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This is where Martino’s pragmatism and attention to detail will prove especially useful.
Accompanying the manager upon his appointment at Barcelona were Raul Marcovich and Adrian Coria, and both have been tasked with setting up a video-scouting system unprecedented in the history of the club. Marcovich, for example, followed Levante around during pre-season and provided his boss with a scouting package that quite clearly had Martino knowing exactly what to expect on Sunday.
Preparation for every opponent, no matter their form or position in the table, will be at least as vigorous — an indication that Martino will be willing to part with Barcelona’s pressurized, ball-retrieval trademark when the occasion requires it.
(Coria, as it happens, is credited with “discovering” Messi in Rosario and providing the player’s initial training.)
If Barcelona have set the bar in the years following Pep Guardiola’s appointment in 2008, that bar is about to be raised a notch or two. In Martino, one of club football’s most dominant sides has brought in the right manager, with the right approach, at the right time.
This is not good news for the other 19 La Liga clubs or, indeed, Barcelona’s most serious Champions League rivals.
Once again they have done the right thing, even if it caused a few head-scratches at the time. And they will be insufferably good because of it.
Jerrad Peters is a Winnipeg-based writer. Follow him on Twitter.