[新聞] Sid Lowe's Barcelona team of the Decade
http://bit.ly/gmclWM
Here’s one man’s choice for Barcelona’s team of the decade 2000
to 2010:
GK: Víctor Valdés
Víctor Valdés has won three Zamora awards since his debut for
Barcelona in November 2002, as many as any goalkeeper since the turn
of the century. Trouble is, the response to that particular fact is as
inevitable as it is easy: the Zamora, handed to the man who has conceded
the fewest goals per game, actually rewards the best defense, not the
best goalkeeper — and any old idiot can play in goal for Barcelona.
But that’s only partly true. And if anything, what you could call
the Brazilian Goalkeeper Syndrome might actually have counted against
him, minimizing his importance. After all, everyone wants their
goalkeeper to be a savior, and you can only save those that need saving.
Valdés, Zamora in 2004-05, has long-since left the doubts behind (he
has particularly improved with the ball at his feet, where he was
occasionally disastrous). And although Barcelona’s dominance of
the ball limits the number of chances the opposition get — in their
last six games before the Catalan derby, for example, they had
conceded just nine goal-scoring opportunities — it is not all about
the defense. Strong, focused, positionally clever, and quick, Valdés
plays his part too with key saves at key moments. Last season he
unquestionably deserved the Zamora. His late call-up to the Spain
squad for the World Cup was an act of justice, not charity.
RB: Juliano Belletti
Let’s face it, Dani Alves is the best right back to play for Barcelona
over the last 10 years — and probably over the last 20. But he only
joined Barcelona two years ago and although he was a vital part of a
unique team that won six trophies in a run, he did not actually play
in the Champions League final against Manchester United in Rome. So,
sneaking in ahead of him (probably unfairly) is Juliano Belletti.
Belletti was at Barcelona from 2004 to 2007 and won two league titles
and the European Cup. That’s the same as Alves (who adds a Copa del Rey
and World Club Cup), only with one big difference: Belletti might have
only scored once for Barça but it was the winning goal in the European
Cup final. Frank Rijkaard’s fears over his perceived defensive
frailties were misplaced — and ultimately cost Barcelona.
His replacement by, first, Oleguer and, then, Zambrotta was not the
main factor in Barcelona’s decline but it was a factor: without
Belletti Barcelona had little width, becoming more predictable and
more exposed, not less.
CB: Carles Puyol
Barcelona’s very own Captain Caveman, playing with his hair in his
eyes and his heart on his sleeve. Suffered an important fall in form
during 2007 and 2008 — based, above all, on the coming together of a
tactical weakness and a physical dip, as well as the fact that he was
suddenly exposed and felt a responsibility to cover for others. Puyol
tended to come screeching out of defense to win tackles and headers
that he couldn’t actually get to. The good news is that Pep Guardiola
has helped eradicate those tactical mistakes. Also, fit again, deeply
serious about his preparation, Puyol has the physical condition to get
away with it once again. In fact, he has got even better. Seemed to be
on his way out a year or so ago, but has been undisputed since. Almost
comically intense, he never, ever lets his guard slip. Just ask teammate
Gerard Piqué — who spends all game, every game getting shouted at.
Or Edmílson. During one game Puyol started screaming at Edmílson
over a minor mistake … until Valdés intervened to calm him down and
remind him that Barcelona were winning 3-0. The season’s revelation
in 2001 according to football magazine Don Balón, he has racked up
over 350 league games, four league titles, two European Cups, a European
Championship and a World Cup.
CB: Gerard Piqué
When Piqué was a kid, the then Barcelona coach Louis Van Gaal came
around to his grandfather’s house for dinner. The proud grandfather,
also a director at the club, introduced little Gerard: a kid who was
going to go on an play for his club. Van Gaal walked up to him … and
pushed him over. Towering over Gerard, he barked: “you’re too weak to
be a Barcelona defender.” Who knows, had it not been for the spell at
Manchester United, he might have been right. But now, Piqué is not just
strong enough to play for Barcelona but is on course to be a future
captain and a massive idol, possibly even the best central defender in
Europe. Wonderful with the ball at his feet, the first link in every
Barcelona move — the man that allows Barcelona to invite pressure
and still escape it. The 2009 Copa del Rey final was the classic
example, Piqué receiving from Valdés on his own byline to draw
Athletic Bilbao in. Then there’s the sixth goal against Real Madrid
at the Bernabéu — in which Piqué started and brilliantly finished
a 60-yard move. In just two years at Barcelona, he has won everything
there is to win, including a World Cup. (And if two years does not
seem enough to get in this side — and for other positions it hasn’t
been — ask yourself this: who else is there? Márquez? Maybe.
De Boer? Nah.)
LB: Giovanni Van Bronckhorst
Gio wasn’t even a left back when he joined Barcelona but he did a pretty
good impression of one. Quick, tidy and not at all bad defensively, he
gave Barcelona balance and a certain attacking presence between 2003
and 2007. Didn’t get that many goals but his 94th-minute winner
against Betis allowed Barcelona to take a giant step toward the
2004-2005 title. That was one of two league titles that Gio won with
the club. And he also won the European Cup. Arrived, as a midfielder,
on loan from Arsenal and later joined Barcelona on a permanent deal
for €2 million ($2.6 million). A bargain.
M: Xavi Hernández
In the words of Louis Van Gaal and Alex Ferguson, Xavi gave the ball
away once … sometime back in 1996. The ultimate passer, the man who
is not just a far better player than most footballers but makes his
teammates far better players too. A brilliant footballer who every time
he gets the ball has only one thing on his mind: to give it away again.
In the last year, a player has completed one hundred passes or more on
25 occasions. On 13 of those that player was Xavi. Against Levante on
Sunday, he completed more passes (156!) than the entire Levante team
put together. The ideologue behind the most successful Barcelona team
in history — and the most successful Spain team, too. In the last two
years alone, he has won the European Championships, the World Cup, the
league, the Copa del Rey, and the European Cup. More Barcelona appearances
than anyone else in history, having made his debut in October 1998. The
best central midfielder Spanish football has ever produced.
M: Andres Iniesta
“Andres doesn’t dye his hair, he doesn’t wear earrings and he hasn’t
got any tattoos”, said Pep Guardiola. “Andres has everything — except
media backing,” said Xavi. For a few years, the complaint was that his
normal-ness meant that people did not give him enough credit; now, it has
become another selling point. Not only is he brilliant — and he is
sometimes startling, unexpectedly brilliant — but everyone loves him
even more precisely because he appears so normal. So thoroughly likable,
so utterly decent. Skinny, pale, a little balding, yet a total genius with
unbelievably fast feet. “Walking” through a training drill at the Mini
Estadi the other day, he moved the ball from one foot to the other so fast
that the watching crowd was left open mouthed; one training partner
spluttered a simple: “hostia.” Bloody heck! And that said it all.
Beyond the tribal loyalties, if the Spanish could have chosen a man
to score the winning goal in the World Cup final, they would have
chosen him. Iniesta, on the other hand, simply waited for the ball to
drop and chose his spot.
M: Deco
Deco joined Barcelona as the star man from Jose Mourinho’s European
Cup-winning Porto side in 2004. But rather than take the fantasy role
behind the strikers, he played in a more withdrawn, deeper position.
From there he, even more than Xavi, dictated the game for three years.
Had an unusual way of moving the ball — always controlled it with his
studs rather than his instep, putting his foot on the ball, rolling it
with the underside of his boot. And seemed to almost hop rather than run
past opponents. He had great vision and an extraordinary tactical
awareness. When he played well, Barcelona played well. And his decline,
like that of Ronaldinho, was in part Barcelona’s decline too. Sadly,
his departure was necessary for the team’s rebirth. But a few years
earlier his arrival had been too. Won two league titles and the European
Cup between 2004 and 2008, and was voted Uefa’s best midfielder in 2006.
F: Ronaldinho
Ronaldinho’s rapid decline, the fact that he became a huge problem for
Barcelona (and “huge” was often the word), doesn’t change the bottom
line: for three or four years he was absolutely incredible, doing things
you had simply never seen before — the outrageous skill, the dribbles,
the assists, the overhead kicks, and the rockets, flying in off the bar.
The passes with his back, for goodness sake. Had he carried on like that
and had he emulated his Barcelona form at a World Cup, we might have been
talking about one of the best players of all time. But he didn’t. He did,
though, change Barcelona’s history — revitalizing them, kick-starting
them after three years of crisis. (My) Player of the Year twice, in 2004
and 2006 (only Messi has done the same in the decade), and FIFA World
Player twice in a row, Ronaldinho was unlike anything before or since.
Won two league titles and the European Cup, scoring almost a goal every
other game. Most of them brilliant. Even got a standing ovation from
Real Madrid’s fans after one stunning display at the Santiago Bernabéu.
In 2003, Barcelona’s incoming president Joan Laporta tried to sign David
Beckham and failed. So he signed Ronaldinho instead. Has to be the
greatest runners-up prize ever.
F: Samuel Eto’o
The striker with a big mouth and an even bigger heart. Plus a very short
fuse. Driven, committed, almost pathological in his desire to win, Eto’o
was absolutely voracious and scored a ridiculous amount of goals with
unflinching consistency. In fact, over the last decade, no one has
scored more in La Liga than him. More importantly, he always got the
goals that mattered, the opening goals and the winning goals — not just
the ones that came at the end of a thrashing of some bunch of donkeys. Left
Barcelona having won the treble … and immediately won another one with
Inter. Scored over 150 league goals and even when he was not able to have
an impact he had one: missed out of much of 2006-07 and 2007-08 with
injury but still got 11 in 19 and 16 in 18 respectively. The fact that
those were the years that Barcelona went without success are no
coincidence, either. Won three league titles, the Copa del Rey, and two
European Cups. Scored the key opening goal in both of Barcelona’s
European Cup finals. It wasn’t just about the goals, either — it was
also about the pressure and intensity he applied. No one wanted it more
than Eto’o. One of the things that was often overlooked about his very
public, very damaging dispute with Ronaldinho is that Eto’o was right.
F: Leo Messi
Easy choice, hard to explain. How do you find the words to do justice
to Lionel Messi? Where do you get a superlative that hasn’t been used
before? (Not least on these very pages.) The man whose statistics are
barely plausible, who can do it all — and ‘all’ really is the word.
Un. Be. Lievable.
Coach: Pep Guardiola.
Rijkaard shouldn’t be forgotten but there’s only one candidate —
Guardiola.
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