Is Barcelona Ordinary Without Lionel Messi?
February 26, 2019
With Barcelona boasting just a single win in their last five matches, Barcelona manager Ernesto Valverde should be very worried.
Barcelona will face tougher fixtures in the coming weeks, which will determine the success of the club this season. However, this poor form at such an important stage in the season is not a good sign at all.
On September 2018, Lionel Messi promised Barcelona fans that he and his teammates would win the Champions League. This is a trophy that they have failed to win since 2015 and have been continuously eliminated in the quarterfinals since then. Speaking at a press conference, he said: “It’s unique, special, the best thing to be playing for at club level. A totally different competition and we all want to win it.”
If you look at the performance of the Blaugrana in Lyon, it would seem that the Argentine is the only one expected to do all the hard work in achieving that dream. Many would agree that Barcelona would have never stood a chance of winning if Messi wasn’t playing. Is the Barcelona team ordinary without Messi?
When Messi was out injured for Barcelona early in the season, Barcelona managed to win some matches without him. A memorable one was the 5-1 demolition of Real Madrid in the Clasico. They also were able to qualify from the group stages of the Champions League without the legendary Barcelona forward. But of recent, Barcelona has consistently faltered without Messi in the starting XI.
So, Are Barcelona ordinary without Messi? No, of course. They have great players like Dembélé, Coutinho and Suarez, all of whom can produce a moment of magic and change the game. Suarez scored a hat-trick in the Clasico and Messi wasn’t playing, so he can deliver without Messi. However, where could the problem lie?
The truth is that the Barcelona team aren’t ordinary without Messi; they are just too dependent on their star man. When Messi is out injured, they might play better, but when he is available to play, they solely rely on him.
A good example was in the Copa Del Rey clash with Real Madrid. In that game, Messi was on the bench, and Barcelona was trailing Madrid by a lone goal. Subsequently, Malcom equalised with a superb goal. After Barcelona equalized, their confidence was high, and the tempo of the game was fast. However, Messi was brought on as a substitute and Barcelona were no longer pushing for the win. Probably they felt that with Messi now on the pitch, they would eventually win and all they needed to do was give the ball to Messi.
Needless to say, Barça drew the game and did not play well throughout.
The match also laid bare a major issue for Barcelona fans: Their overdependency on Lionel Messi. In the last ten years, Messi has either created or scored 46 percent of his team’s La Liga goals. In the last two seasons, that figure has reached up to 50 percent in both the league and the Champions League.
Barcelona are not ordinary without Messi; they just need to be more confident in their abilities and talent. Even though Messi is the greatest Barça player of all time, someday he’ll eventually stop playing for them. When that time comes, Barcelona needs to show their character and prove to everyone that they are not ordinary without Messi.
Also Read: Barcelona Need To Prepare For Life after Messi
This article is brought to us by our newest member of Sports Writers Club – Hrach Khachatryan. Hrach Khachatryan is a top Armenian football blogger. He loves sharing his article with football fans all over the world
