Posted by Stephen Kuzner

By Stephen Kuzner - WFD Fan Corresponden

The past few seasons, madness seemed to loom over the Santiago Bernabéu much more so than at the Camp Nou. Madrid signed Kaka and Ronald for sums of money the size as values of entire teams. They sacked a coach last year whose team earned more points than any previous Madrid side. Madridistas do not just desire trophies, but rather lust after beautifully-won trophies. The psychological ache in the world of Real Madrid is one of impulse. Impulse buying. Impulse sacking. Impulse media. While, Barcelona's irrational flaw is one of fear. Fear of falling short. 2006-07 was the La Liga title that no one seems to want to win. Madrid and Barcelona both had 76 points, but Madrid won the title on the head-to-head with Barcelona; this despite Barcelona having a 45 goal-differential to Madrid's 26. Does Barcelona's shock loss to Hercules foreshadow a calamitous repeat their unfocused 2006-07 season?

An easy thing to do is to say no and point-out that in 2008-09, Barcelona started the campaign with a tie to Numancia and a loss at Racing Santander and then went on to win 6 trophies. You could also blame the loss on an exhausted host of players that helped Spain win the World Cup and were jet-lagged from traveling to Argentina. Maybe Pep Guardiola put out a squad with some players not quite acclimated to the Barcelona-way. You could even joke that it was a day game at the Camp Nou. All these things are probably true and had some impact on the match. However, I am not so sure. Barcelona put out a team that was far superior to Hercules and did not look to be the better team. I think this loss represents a bi-polar start to the Blaugranes' season.

Barcelona looked sharp and crisp the week before beating Racing Santander on the read, 0-3. Barcelona then slipped to Hercules 0-2. A few days later they trounce Panathinaikos 5-1 in the Champions League with a remarkable 28 shots and 820 completed passes. These are three games where they have either been brilliant or lost the plot. Next comes, a trip his weekend to the Vicente Calderón versus La Liga leaders, albeit 2 weeks into the season, Atlético Madrid. This is a place the past few years where Barcelona have come undone; last year losing 2-1 and in 2007-08 falling 4-2. This weekend will be a treat for a footballing-neutral, but a stressful spectacle to watch for a Barca supporter. Next comes more of the same with two La Liga fixtures: a seemingly easy home match-up on Wednesday against Sporting Gijon, but a difficult test on Saturday traveling to Athletic Bilbao's San Mamés fortress, yet another site famous for Barcelona ambushes. This schedule favors a manic-depressive start. Still, there is something else that will make things even more up and down these first few weeks ...


Barcelona's 19.

Is it possible that Barcelona, only two games into La Liga, are already suffering from depth problems having only 19 named squad players? Shaving-down the roster headcount will help balance the books for a team in a financial jam, but it really hurts when you are a team that plays in a very specific way where players can't be brought up to speed very quickly. Adriano and Mascherano didn't look settled-in to the Barca philosophy and timing against Hercules. There's little to no practice time to get them in tune with 3 games in 8 days. Barcelona's 19 need to take a stand now or they'll lose enough points to fall too far behind in the league table to catch either one of the Madrid's. Early losses to Hercules, Atlético Madrid and Athletic Bilbao could be fatal. Is it mad to think that Barcelona could be too far behind to win La Liga after a mere five rounds?



Please send any feedback to skuzner@mail.com.