The US play those guys in baby blue and white stripes tonight, so we thought it’d be a good time to pour the mind juices over Bradley’s picks (is that guy still the coach?). Having been to the last meeting between these squads at the old Meadowlands, we can say with some surety that most of the fans there will be cheering for Argentina.
But let’s not forget that there’s a team in red out there too. Most importantly the next round of young’ins. Juan Agudelo is a favorite (as you know), and maybe be America’s next great hope up top. There’s also this kid Tim Chandler, a defender who plays in Germany, who has all of 20 years. Also in defense is Eric Lichaj, who sounds to be pretty foreign, but unlike these last two guys was actually born in America. He’s been bouncing around England on loans, but has still managed more playing time at Aston Villa than the US coach’s son.
Who else is there…Tim Ream, another defender who plays in NY. Good potential there but his teammate Agudelo is the shining light. Finally there’s Mixx Diskerud. Mixx, sure. He’s a midfielder playing in Norway, and that’s all we know.
Let’s hope Big Bob lets the kids play. Especially up top. Have we not seen that Altidore doesn’t have what it takes? But that’s for the another post…
The Interlull is upon us. Just when the domestic and Champions leagues are hurtling towards their conclusions, getting us all hot and bothered…they take a break so the best players can fly all over the world to risk injury playing for their respective national teams in largely meaningless international games. (Full disclosure: we picked up the “Interlull” terminology from the indispensable Arseblog.)
That said, some of these games aren’t completely meaningless–included on this weekend’s are a handful of Euro 2012 and African Cup qualifiers featuring some nations/players we like to watch. And some of the meaningless international friendlies shouldn’t be completely uninteresting–particularly USA hosting Argentina at the (New) Meadowlands (Saturday), Brazil playing Scotland at the Emirates (Sunday), and Ghana playing England at Wembley (Tuesday).
But you’ll have to come back for our previews of the latter matches. There are so many fixtures (over 100) spread out over so many days (Friday thru Tuesday) that we’ve been forced to split up this weekend’s viewing guide into a multi-installment day-by-day affair. As in the past, we’ve relied upon WaPo’s Soccer Insider for a complete listing of matches, times, and US television options. Here our choices for…
Friday, March 25
Hungary-Netherlands in Budapest (3:30pmET, ESPN3.com; 7pm on ESPND): A Euro 2012 qualifier between the two teams at the top of the Group E standings.
For the Dutch, no Arjen Robben nor Huntelaar due to injuries. But still plenty of talent to watch in midfield, on the wings, and up front: Schneijder, van der Vaart, van Persie, Kuyt, Elia, Affelay. Plus watch for up-and-coming right wingback Gregory van der Wiel. Barcelona was said to be keeping an eye on him in case they were unable to resign Dani Alves. Now that Alves has turned his back on a potential big money transfer to Man City and signed on for a few more seasons in Catalonia, Man City has apparently shifted their focus to van der Wiel.
We’re really not sure who to watch for on the current Hungarian squad–but after watching this match we should know for the return fixture in Amsterdam on Tuesday (see below).
International qualifiers and friendlies upon us, we look to the wit and wisdom of our Brazilian correspondent Mark Gannon to sort through the samba boys selection vs Scotland for this Sunday, and answer the question, why no Robinho?
Yet another chance to display gratuitous bare torso/boobage.
FWIW, Mano says he’s letting Robinho rest now, but that he’ll be counting on Robinho for Copa América. And he made a point of reminding everyone that Robinho has been on every one of Mano’s previous lists.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Mano go wild testing players for a few games, but I also wouldn’t mind if he started to settle on a group of starters. Either way. I don’t see what he sees in André Santos, but finally Marcelo is getting some love, even if in Mano’s mind he’s just André’s backup. If I were Marcelo, I probably would have gone postal early last year when people were talking about Roberto Carlos (ferchrissakes) on the squad for the World Cup, and they weren’t joking.
I was just saying yesterday that Maicon is somebody who could still help the team. It’s really too bad there’s no way to have two right wingbacks. Call it the US journalism formation or something. I don’t care. It would put Dani Alves and Maicon on the field at the same time for the same team. Dani is versatile enough to play either wingback position or a midfield position, but his natural and best position is the same as Maicon’s. This is a good kind of problem to have.
It’s kind of entertaining that there are two players called Lucas on this list. There’s the young attacking middie from São Paulo (DAMN HIM) who played really well in the U20 South American championship and there’s the volante Lucas y’all prob’ly know from Liverpool. I don’t know much about the Liverpool Lucas. I’ve seen him play for the seleção a few times, and I caught part of a Tottenham game once. I was never overwhelmed, but I assumed there was a reason he was getting paid well to play in England and why he was on the seleção several times.
Olympique Marseille visits Old Trafford today, attempting to advance to the final eight of the Champions League for the first time since 1993--when they went all the way and won the title--the one and only time a French club has won the Champions League. Marseille held Manchester United to a scoreless draw at home in the Stade Velodrome in the first leg--and hence Man U needs an outright victory in today's match to advance. Look for Marseille to sit back and play a disciplined defensive game--and attempt to score at least one goal via a counterattack.
The first leg of Arsenal-Barcelona did not disappoint, with the Gunners stunningly coming from behind to win 2-1 three weeks ago at home in London. So the return leg today in Barcelona is even more tantalizing.
As Fabregas indicated in his first leg post-match interview, one should think of these home&away aggregate-goal fixtures as a single 180 minute match. So Arsenal lead 2-1 at “half”; do they come out and try to defend that lead for 90 minutes on the road? That is to say, will they attempt to park the proverbial bus? Many believe Wenger is philosophically incapable of doing so, and he has said this week that Arsenal won’t do so–which perhaps mean they will? It will be interesting to see the starting XIs Wenger and Guardiola will choose, the formations they deploy, and how they instruct their sides to play.
Both teams will be missing key players due to injury or suspension, requiring both managers to start players that haven’t done so most of the season. Barcelona will be without both Pique and Puyol–the solid central back partnership for not only club but also World Cup-winning country. So Barça will have a very different look in the back, which will most likely ripple into midfield. Indications are that Guardiola will move Busquets back from his usual defensive midfield position to partner with Abidal in the center of the defense, and Mascherano will get the start in the holding midfield role.
Beyond that, Barcelona’s lineup should be consist of the usual suspects, arrayed in their usual 4-3-3: the Brazilian wingbacks (Dani Alves and either Maxwell or Adriano) on either side of the center backs; Xavi and Iniesta in the heart of the midfield; Messi, Villa, and Pedro providing the attack.
Though as tactical guru Jonathan Wilson described in a column last fall, it’s not unusual that both of Barca’s wingbacks go forward to provide width in attack–especially against sides that are sitting deep in a firmly parked bus–in which cases Busquets would drop back to stay home and keep Pique/Puyol company (and hence the 4-3-3 would morph to something more like a W-W, i.e.. a 2-3-2-3).
Two points to take away from that. One: central defense is not such a foreign place for Busquets. Two, watch for if/when the wingbacks get far forward, to see if Arsenal can regain possession and counterattack into that space. That’s what Arsenal was able to do at the Emirates–most memorably on the beautiful winning goal, when Fabregas picked out Nasri behind the defense on the right wing, and Nasri waited for Arshavin to come up into the box up the right wing (running past a casually jogging Dani Alves). But it also happened in the first half, when Fabregas and Walcott got behind the defense on two separate occasions.
Indeed, Arsenal could use Walcott on the pitch tomorrow, as his speed is something Barcelona is has worried about in previous matches. Unfortunately for the Gunners, he’s out due to injury, so it will fall to Nasri, Arshavin and most likely Bendnter to make those breaks forward, with Fabregas and Wilshere feeding them from the central midfield. (Recall that in the 2nd leg of last year’s quarterfinals at the Nou Camp, Bendnter scored to put Arsenal up in the match and on aggregate–but shortly thereafter the Messi show started.) Even though Robin van Persie was a late surprise inclusion in the squad, look for him to start on the bench and come on if Arsenal find themselves down.
The battle to watch is in midfield. Arsenal is significantly without their defensive midfield stalwart Alex Song. We expect it will be Abou Diaby to start alongside young Jack Wilshere as the two in Arsenal’s 4-2-3-1 (although Zonal Marking makes a case in his match preview that Wenger might go with Denilson). If you can, simultaneously track Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi when Barcelona have possession (which should of course be most of the time), and watch for who out of Barcelona’s midfield is able to track that trinity, tackle to regain possession–and potentially start counterattacks.
The past few seasons have seen the meeting between Abromovich’s blues and Fergie’s boys in red decide the winner of the Prem. This time around the result will have similar impact, but Chelsea are fighting for different honors. Three points to the home side will lessen the gap to the league leaders (an insurmountable twelve points with a win), but more importantly victory for Chelsea means they leapfrog Spurs into fourth and a place in the Champions League.
What’s more, a win for Chelsea holds United at four points above the Arsenal, who would then have a game in hand. It’s hard to say exactly who comes into the match with more pressure upon them: the holding champions, with their aging foundation of Terry, Cole, Lampard and Drogba, none of them having a particularly stellar season, or United, who paradoxically won an unconvincing 4-0 against Wigan over the weekend.
United have simply not been firing on all cylinders this season, and Ferguson has been hard pressed to name a consistent top XI. Rooney started the season under immense criticism over contract negotiations, and that plus his poor showing at the summer’s World Cup seem to have messed with his mojo. Berbatov has been his usual uncharismatic self who just doesn’t inspire confidence. Nani is a few seasons away from ripe, Ferdinand has had too many injuries, Giggs and Scholes couldn’t have much life left in them (though Giggs…), van der Sar is about to retire though he’s having an amazing season, and good thing too since his backline is unconvincing. Evans, O’Shea, Gibson– who knows who Fergison will settle on. Then there’s a supporting cast that includes the like of Michael Owen and Owen Hargreaves. Between dead wood and raw youngsters Ferguson is caught making it up as he goes along.
You have to admire United, then, for the results they’ve produced this year. Especially considering they were confronted at the onset of the season with a Chelsea team who appeared unstoppable. Malouda looked incredible, Anelka was finding ways to be even smoother than his usually super-smooth self (perhaps as a message to the FFF who had sent him home from South Africa so unceremoniously), Essien was back and playing wherever he was needed, Obi Mikel looked solid in the holding role, even young Josh McEachran had a few run outs encouraging a sense that there was youth in an otherwise aging side.
Then it all got turned around for Chelsea. Somewhere along the way they lost the plot, something that United, though perhaps less talented than their southern neighbors, have not done for any length of time this season. Chalk it up to the management, then. Ancelotti forgot how to inspire his club in February, while Ferguson kept pushing a rather dull team to scrape out wins no matter what.
The marquee matchup of the Round of 16 is without a doubt Arsenal vs. Barcelona. That’s partly because Arsenal is the one group-stage favorite that slipped into 2nd place in their group (behind Shakhtar Donetsk, due to losses at Donetsk and at Sporting Braga), and hence had to draw a group winner for the Round of 16. But it’s also because these teams have an affinity, a rivalry, and a history.
Their rivalry comes out of their affinity and their history. Both play what might be called the Dutch style of football–one that emphasizes possession, with the ball on the ground, intricate and sustained buildup (the opposite of “Route one” football), one- and two-touch passing (tiki-taka, if you will), individual technical skill, movement off the ball, a fearful geometry of passing angles..all in all, various aspects of “total” football.
Indeed, this Dutch heritage is real, especially in Barcelona’s case: their spiritual leader is Johan Cryuff, who brought to Barcelona this style–or rather philosophy–from Ajax in the early ’70s, when he was the best player in the world. It was Cryuff who suggested that Barcelona set up a youth academy, similar to the Ajax Academy, which became the famous La Masia–“The House that Built Barca” (h/t to Sumit for the link).
Cryuff & Guardiola: Yoda & the Then-young Jedi
And Cryuff returned to Barcelona in the early ’90s, managing a group of fantastic players called Cryuff’s Dream Team–the “fulcrum” of which was a young midfielder named Pep Guardiola. Now of course Guardiola is manager–and some are saying Guardiola’s current team is better than those Barcelona teams; including some who played alongside Pep back then (“when they won the European Cup for the first time in 1992 and clinched four consecutive league titles between 1991 and 1994. That side featured the likes of Romario, Hristo Stoichkov and Ronald Koeman.)
Cryuff now dispenses his opinions and wisdom with weekly essays that appear in the Barcelona newspaper El Periódico. One of his recent entries was titled “El fútbol total del siglo XXI“–“Total Football for the 21st Century” (“Solo dos equipos, el Madrid de Di Stéfano y el Ajax de los años 70, habían sido capaces hasta ahora de reinventar el fútbol como lo está haciendo el de Guardiola” which translates to: “Only two teams, the Madrid of de Di Stefano and the Ajax of the early ’70s were able to reinvent the game as Guardiola’s team is now doing.”
With Arsenal, a similar “continental” style of play came to north London via France–Arsene Wenger arrived to manage Arsenal in the mid-’90s, after a decade managing in France. Although he’s perhaps best known for bringing to the Premier League French and African (and especially, perhaps, French-African), two of his most influential players in his first decade coaching at Arsenal were Dutch internationals Denis Bergkamps and Marc Overmars–and one of his most important right now is Dutch striker Robin van Persie.
But his most important player, Arsenal’s talisman, if you will, is Cesc Fabregas–a native Catalan whom Wenger signed away from Barcelona’s La Masia seven years ago, when Cesc was only 16. Apparently Cesc was convinced that he wouldn’t have the same opportunities to play at Barcelona that he has had at Arsenal, given the midfield talent that was being groomed at La Masia back then. But now Barcelona now wants to bring Fabregas back–which is one source of conflict between the clubs, and one of the major storylines of these meetings.
As a player, Guardiola was very much the prototype of the modern Spanish midfielder: technically-gifted, balanced and an immaculate passer of the ball.
He was at the heart of Johan Cruyff’s all-conquering Barca side in the 1990s and was idolised by the young Fabregas as he made his way through the academy ranks.
Borrell, who has remained a friend and confidante to Fabregas, tells a story that encapsulates the connection between the Arsenal star and his one-time hero.
In 2001, when Fabregas was going through the pain of his parents’ divorce, Borrell persuaded Guardiola to sign his famous number four shirt for the young protege. On it, he wrote: ‘One day, you will be the number four of Barcelona.’
Guardiola & Xavi
But for now, of course, the heart of the Barcelona midfield, the deus ex machina, is Xavi. Messi scores the goals, gets the press, gets the awards–but many thought it was Xavi that should have received the Balon d’Or this year, instead of Messi (but Xavi finished 3rd in the balloting–with Iniesta finishing 2nd!).
You must read this interview with Xavi that Guardian Football’s Spanish correspondent Sid Lowe conducted last weekend. An excerpt:
Think quickly, look for spaces. That’s what I do: look for spaces. All day. I’m always looking. All day, all day. [Xavi starts gesturing as if he is looking around, swinging his head]. Here? No. There? No. People who haven’t played don’t always realise how hard that is. Space, space, space. It’s like being on the PlayStation. I think shit, the defender’s here, play it there. I see the space and pass. That’s what I do.
That’s at the heart of the Barcelona model and runs all the way through the club, doesn’t it? When you beat Madrid, eight of the starting XI were youth-team products and all three finalists in this year’s Ballon d’Or were too – Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta and you.
Some youth academies worry about winning, we worry about education. You see a kid who lifts his head up, who plays the pass first time, pum, and you think, ‘Yep, he’ll do.’ Bring him in, coach him. Our model was imposed by [Johan] Cruyff; it’s an Ajax model. It’s all about rondos [piggy in the middle]. Rondo, rondo, rondo. Every. Single. Day. It’s the best exercise there is. You learn responsibility and not to lose the ball. If you lose the ball, you go in the middle. Pum-pum-pum-pum, always one touch. If you go in the middle, it’s humiliating, the rest applaud and laugh at you.
Your Barcelona team-mate Dani Alves said that you don’t play to the run, you make the run by obliging team-mates to move into certain areas. “Xavi,” he said, “plays in the future.”
They make it easy. My football is passing but, wow, if I have Dani, Iniesta, Pedro, [David] Villa … there are so many options. Sometimes, I even think to myself: man, so-and-so is going to get annoyed because I’ve played three passes and haven’t given him the ball yet. I’d better give the next one to Dani because he’s gone up the wing three times. When Leo [Messi] doesn’t get involved, it’s like he gets annoyed … and the next pass is for him.
See below for what Xavi has to say about Arsenal and English football. (With apologies to Sid Lowe and the Guardian, we’ve ended up excerpting the majority of the interview–so click thru and give them a pageview. Or even better, make sure you read everything Sid Lowe writes–no better English-language coverage of La Liga exists, as far as we can tell. In fact, click thru to Lowe’s breakdown of “Three lessons for Arsenal before they take on Barcelona“; namely–1: Internazionale, Champions League, 20 Apr 2010; 2: Sporting Gijón, La Liga 12 Feb 2010; 3: Real Madrid, La Liga 29 Nov 2010.)
The one match of the day is the match of the week–Chelsea goes crosstown to take on Arsenal at the Emirates. Kickoff is at 8pm in London (3pm ET; watch it on ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, or ESPN3.com in the US).
Here are a handful of links to get you ready for the big match:
–We find it’s very useful to have the Current Squad lists in front of us, for #s, nationalities, and links to individual player bios: Chelsea & Arsenal.
–Prior to the Chelsea-Arsenal match in early October, we posted a look at the players of African origin on each squad.
–Here is Goal.com’s match preview, which also has links to lineups and match stats (updated once the match is underway).
–Here is ESPNSoccerNet’s match preview, which predictably lists Samir Nasri and Didier Drogba as the players to watch (Nasri perhaps having replaced the too-oft-injured Fabregas as Arsenal’s talisman), and lists the following as the key match-up:
Key Battle: Bacary Sagna v Ashley Cole. One of the Premier League’s finest right-backs, Sagna’s strength and pace create an excellent outlet and his defensive nous is of great importance given the sometimes shaky nature of the Arsenal defence. On the right side, he bombs forward and possesses a decent final delivery, but he will be required to track back to counter the threat of Cole. The former Arsenal left-back certainly knows a thing or two about his old team, but Sagna poses a different challenge, having joined the club a year after Cole left for Chelsea. Both are full of running and attacking ambition, but it will be how they deal with their defensive duties that settles this battle.
The US play those guys in baby blue and white stripes tonight, so we thought it’d be a good time to pour the mind juices over Bradley’s picks (is that guy still the coach?). Having been to the last meeting between these squads at the old Meadowlands, we can say with some surety that most of the fans there will be cheering for Argentina.
The Interlull is upon us. Just when the domestic and Champions leagues are hurtling towards their conclusions, getting us all hot and bothered…they take a break so the best players can fly all over the world to risk injury playing for their respective national teams in largely meaningless international games. (Full disclosure: we picked up the “Interlull” terminology from the indispensable Arseblog.)
