In football terms, are Barca as good as it gets?
Bayern Munich are again winter champions. Benfica and Porto share the lead in the title race. Juventus are two points clear in Serie A. And Maurizio Zamparini has brought the spirit of goodwill to Palermo by sacking his fifth manager in 11 months, equalling the Italian record he set in 2007.
Yet times are changing.
Barcelona’s sumptuous 4-0 win against Santos in the Club World Cup on Sunday confirmed them as the best team around and suggested that could be the case for several years to come.
The impact of Barcelona’s approach — both their style of play and approach to coaching and development — is apparent right across Europe, particularly on younger managers such as André Villas-Boas, Jurgen Klopp and Luis Enrique.
And the evolution of Barcelona’s tactics suggests we are due for a revival of the Total Football made famous by Ajax 40 years ago.
Sandro Rosell, Barcelona president, has never been one for excessive modesty and he immediately crowned his side as the best team in history following their destruction of Santos. The scoreline could have become completely embarrassing for the Brazilians and the much-touted Messi-Neymar simply contest never materialised.
Not surprisingly, a lot of Spanish fans agree with Rosell — 75% of them according to an internet poll by Marca yesterday. It is a long time since one club was as dominant: 13 trophies in 16 tournaments is an unparalleled run of success, even if one or two of those trophies are trinkets.
The last club to be so dominant on the international stage was Milan, when Arrigo Sacchi was in charge. They too pressed high up the pitch, they too moved the ball with bewildering speed, and had creative individuals committed to the team ethic.
Going further back, you come to Real Madrid in the 1950s, and the great Hungarian side Honved, as well as the Ajax team that provides the main inspiration for Barcelona today.
It’s fun to try and rank them but as Arrigo Sacchi himself argued recently the game has changed so much, even over the past 20 years let alone the last 50, that it doesn’t make much sense. Fitness is different, the rules have been modified, even the ball has changed.
The level of competition is also different. The European Cup was a lot easier to win in 1956 than the Champions League is now. On the other hand, there were several contenders for the Italian title in 1988 whereas the Spanish league is currently a contested by two teams.
Barcelona do have the chance to make history because their production line of talent seems endless. Like the Dutch once did, they are exporting talent, but for different reasons. The lure of the lira fetched Gullit, Rijkaard and Van Basten to Milan. Barcelona have so much quality coming through, especially in midfield, that they don’t have room for it in their squad.
That’s a new development. Sandro Rosell likes to claim Barcelona’s intention was always to be self-sufficient, but in his previous period of office he was the one who persuaded Ronaldinho to sign, partly because of his contacts through Nike, and he also tried to persuade David Beckham to join the club. Subsequently Barcelona spent approaching €300m on transfer fees in three years, much of it money down the drain.
More interesting than the title of best team is the question of whether other teams can follow suit. Villas-Boas adopted some of the Barcelona approach at Porto last season to great effect: he’s had mixed results at Chelsea. Luis Enrique was recruited from Barcelona by Roma’s new American owners partly in the hope that some of the magic would rub off.
That might yet happen, despite his rocky start in Serie A. But Roma’s other Barcelona recruit, the young striker Bojan Krkic, believes attempts at imitation are doomed.
“None of us [at Roma] has ever stated that Barca is the model. That formula’s been used by the media and the fans but we’re aware that playing like that is impossible for any other team. Luis Enrique is the first to know that: all he wants is for us to play entertaining football based on possession.”
All the same Barcelona’s style of play is not their own invention. Before them there was Ajax, and Ajax themselves were inspired by the Austrian/Hungarian football revolution of the 1930s, with its emphasis on speed, space and players interchanging. So tradition matters at Barcelona as well.
