Luis Aragones, who had been a loyal son of Atletico had died earlier in the week at the age of 75. In memory of his jersey number–8, fans paid him the ultimate tribute due to any footballer, something that he would never get in his playing time— complete silence for eight long minutes. And once the eighth minute struck, the whole stadium chanted his name in perfect unison. There was no sophistication, no complexity in the name chanting, no so-longs, no goodbyes, just a simple and repetitive drone of ‘Luis A-ra-go-nes. Luis A-ra-go-nes.’ Nothing could be as heartfelt, nothing more genuine as an expression of deep respect and love.

I remember Aragones as the unlikeliest of saviours of Spanish football. For the nineties and the noughties when football engulfed me as a passion, Spain were beautiful and frustrating; sublime and bizarre; entirely unpredictable, and not in a manner which evokes excitement as much as it evokes disgust. No one encapsulated this better than Raul, Spain’s evergreen boy wonder— immensely talented though entirely incapable of inspiring his country to national glory. Aragones, as an avuncular sexagenarian, was hardly the natural candidate to my mind to change this mentality. My abiding image of him is of an old man standing beside the team benches during Euro 2008 engulfed in deep thought. He gave me and every armchair footballer credibility, demonstrating that perhaps football was won and lost in the mind, and not on the pitch, reaffirming my peculiar love for a game that I was, and am, wholly ill-equipped to play.

It was Aragones’ deep thought that led to a beautifully simple, straightforward and ever-so-effective tactic that would revolutionise Spanish football— the ‘tiki-taka’. What we take for granted from Spain today, the intuitively attractive and never-ending sets of passes designed to tire the opposition out, was Spain’s ticket to Euro 2008 success. Four decades of under-achievement was wiped out by a brand of football, that was not just effective, but beautiful. I was privileged to watch it in person in Gdansk in 2012 when the same brand of football, and a new generation of Spanish players, defended their European title. While watching Spain’s opponents Croatia haplessly chasing shadows, I wondered where Aragones was and whether the balding, bespectacled thinker was having a quiet moment of immense pride in watching what he had created.

I never had occasion to remember Aragones since then till I stumbled upon the Atletico game today. As the stadium remained silent for eight minutes and broke it powerfully in the ninth, there was scarcely an eye that was dry. And sitting miles away in Delhi, I could feel the combination of sadness and pride celebrating a life fully lived, mourning the passing of a son, a saviour, a man, who lived his life, for Atletico, for Spain. I shed a tear for a man who I never met, who I never felt I knew. There was scarcely a connection between us but yet such was the powerful groundswell of emotions at the Vicente Calderon, that I was deeply moved simply by being witness to the power of a man to move a people by doing something that he loved— playing and teaching others to play football. I had remarked earlier this month to someone that complexity is a beautiful thing. There was neither any complexity about the love that those in the stadium felt for Aragones, nor about the football he played and taught others to play. Both were simple and uncomplicated. And despite it, or more likely because of it, it was one of the most touching and beautiful moments I have seen. Of a simple love expressing itself in a simple chant: ‘Luis A-ra-go-nes,’

Hasta siempre Luis. Hasta siempre fútbol.

]]> http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/hasta-siempre-luis-aragones/feed 0 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/euro-2012-on-france-carrick-and-spain http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/euro-2012-on-france-carrick-and-spain#comments Mon, 28 May 2012 19:24:44 +0000 Suhrith http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=4945 The upcoming 2012 European Championships at Poland and Ukraine is just a over week away. Here is a quick glance at France and Spain’s chances, and a player that England will sorely miss.

***

France is now unbeaten in 19 games under Laurent Blanc, but both its best and worst facets were on display in the recent friendly against Iceland. Any backline comprising Philippe Mexes has enough reasons to be worried, and Iceland, although content to play on the break, cleverly exposed France’s frailties in the first half, taking a 2-0 lead through goals from Birkir Bjarnason and Kolbeinn Sigthorsson. Sigthorsson ran the channels superbly, constantly catching Mexes and Patrice Evra out of position. And with France starting with only one designated holding midfielder in Yohan Cabaye, it seemed every time Iceland broke it could score, particularly when the intelligent Gylfi Sigurdsson was on the ball.

In the second half, though, France’s tasty attacking talents came to the fore. Hatem Ben Arfa was magnificent playing off the right wing – a position that he’s adapted to adroitly at Newcastle United, and he was at the centre of most things that France did well. He constantly linked up with the lone striker, Karim Benzema — his former club-mate — and it was his sublime skill inside Iceland’s box that eventually helped right-back Mathieu Debuchy to pull a goal back. Frank Ribery and Olivier Giroud came on late in the second half to wonderful effect, as well. The pair exchanged an exquisite one-two before Ribery icily lobbed the goalkeeper for the equalizer. Giroud was the architect for the winner too, heading down with remarkable precision for centre back Adel Rami to ram home a powerful effort.

Blanc gave Yoann Gourcuff plenty of on-pitch time, but the once-elegant playmaker looked a shadow of the player that he was, under Blanc at Bordeaux. It’s still unclear whether Gourcuff would make the final cut, but an attacking quartet of Benzema, Giroud, Ribery and Ben Arfa is as good as any other team can muster, not to mention that France will likely have Samir Nasri, Florent Malouda, Mathieu Valbuena, and Jeremy Menez in reserve. The only concern for France is that their good work may be undone by shoddiness in defence. Evra may well be dropped for Gael Clichy, who was in fine form for Manchester City in the latter phase of the season, but the lack of an obvious replacement for Mexes — who also wore the captain’s arm band — must be particularly worrying.

***

Nobody, not even the greatest of English optimists, is expecting England to so much as stand a chance at the European championships, but that the country’s best midfielder isn’t going to the tournament is a disgrace. Roy Hodgson revealed shortly after announcing his squad that Michael Carrick had informed the F.A. that he’d rather be excluded from the squad than play an occasional role off the bench. Hodgson said he’d have to be convinced that Carrick was better than the four central midfielders that he had picked, and that he would be willing to return to the format.

Carrick, though, is exactly the kind of calming presence that England needs in midfield, and he would have entered the competition on the back of a stupendous season with Manchester United — one in which he performed far better than each of the four central midfielders that Hodgson initially picked.

Frank Lampard, although influential in Chelsea’s F.A. Cup and Champions League run, has had a largely subdued season, and even though he can lay proper claim to a place in the squad, he’s hardly going to provide the base in midfield that international football mandates. Steven Gerrard may be England’s captain, but ravaged by injuries, he isn’t anywhere near the player that he once was. In any case, it has been proven beyond doubt that his speculative passing, bereft of even a modicum of consistency, won’t cut it in an international competition. Gareth Barry, Hogdson’s initial pick — now replaced by a centre back, Phil Jagielka after picking up an injury — is pedestrian at best and adds almost no value going forward, with his positioning as an anchor-man hugely suspect. That he’s won as many caps as Glenn Hoddle says more about the way England is run than about his own footballing ability. Scott Parker for all his tough-as-nuts tackling is a poor passer of the football, and hasn’t the class to influence games from midfield at this level. He is also susceptible to regular injuries, bringing into attention the only other options that Hodgson has for the position: James Milner and Phil Jones. Milner is hardworking and full of perseverance, but isn’t an international class footballer, while Jones is hugely inexperienced and can scarcely be trusted to run a midfield.

Possession and its values are often overestimated, but a team that enjoyed a mere 44 percent of the ball, as England did against Norway in a recent friendly, isn’t going to threaten anyone in the Euros. A midfield of Parker, Lampard and Gerrard will only bring to focus England’s familiar failings: a shocking lack of technical excellence. Play Carrick alongside Parker with one of Lampard and Gerrard, and it’s a different story altogether. Carrick isn’t a forceful tackler, but his positional sense is peerless. He wins balls in midfield by intercepting cleverly as opposed to resorting to rash, last ditch tackles, and there is no midfielder in England — barring Paul Scholes — who is smarter at using the ball. Yes, he plays a substantial number of passes backwards and sideways, but expansive, reckless passing will only work to your detriment in international football. Carrick is the classiest midfielder that England could have chosen, and it’s a damning indictment of the way the team is managed that he isn’t going to the Euros.

***

As defending World and European champions, Spain starts the tournament as overwhelming favourites. Vicente Del Bosque has a galaxy of midfield stars to choose from, but he is likely to stick to the three who started in South Africa 2010: Sergio Busquets, Xabi Alonso and Xavi Hernandez. David Silva and Andres Iniesta will likely provide support to the lone centre forward, with Juan Mata, Cesc Fabregas and Santi Cazorla coming off the bench. However, with David Villa — perhaps Spain’s greatest ever striker — ruled out due to injury, Del Bosque will have to choose between Fernando Llorente, Alvaro Negredo and Fernando Torres for a starter’s spot. Llorente’s relative immobility and Negredo’s inexperience at the level means that Torres – in spite of his woeful form – may well get the nod. And therein lies Spain’s chief concern.

With Carles Puyol also ruled out, the defence wouldn’t be as solid as it was in the previous two competitions, but there is enough experience – in Raul Albiol, Sergio Ramos and Gerard Pique – to ensure that there are no significant mishaps. One would imagine that with the midfield that Spain has it would be a shoo-in for the knockout stages. If Torres can find even an ounce of form by that stage — although the evidence of the season gone-by suggests that he wouldn’t — there may be no team capable of stopping Spain.

]]> http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/euro-2012-on-france-carrick-and-spain/feed 3 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/reminiscing-about-pep-a-retrospective-on-guardiola-and-his-team-60-years-from-today http://www.criticaltwenties.in/sport/reminiscing-about-pep-a-retrospective-on-guardiola-and-his-team-60-years-from-today#comments Sat, 28 Apr 2012 16:39:37 +0000 Suhrith http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=4858 The man is sitting with his back slightly hunched on the edge of a black easy chair in his home in the Nilgiris Hills in Southern India. His thin silvery grey hair sits like a crown on the top of his head; his knees have gone creaky and old; his skin is wrinkled and weary, and his eyesight has weakened considerably. But he still strains himself and looks at the projected screen through his large black-rimmed glasses. Sitting next to him on a cushy leather sofa is a young boy of 10: his grandson who visits him at his home every summer. Spritely and merry, the boy, dressed in a blue and red football top, with the name Anakolov, and the number 10 etched on its back, is equally transfixed by the wafer thin screen that is showcasing moving images clearer than anything else you can see a few feet in front of you. Behind them on a plain white wall hangs a large framed picture of a man with a shiny balding head, unruly stubble, and wearing an immaculate grey suit with a black V-neck sweater: a photograph of Pep Guardiola on the sidelines of the Camp Nou, gesticulating with his right hand to a player on the far end of the pitch.

It is May 2072 — Barcelona is playing Paris St. Germain in a hugely important league game. Some 20 years earlier the elite football clubs of Europe had broken away to form a rogue league, a commercial behemoth, the formation of which people had anticipated for decades. There are some clubs from outside the continent too in the league, and games are played across the globe, from Melbourne to Hong Kong, San Francisco to London, and Sao Paulo to Durban. Today’s game is at the Princeton Hall Stadium, a sparkling state-of-the-art arena in Tokyo that can seat close to 120,000 spectators. Barcelona, two points ahead of Bayern Munich — the German giants who have won the league three out of the last five years — in the competition can seal the trophy with a win today. PSG has nothing to lose or gain, it is fourteenth in the league and is comfortably clear of the relegation battlers — the poor teams that may have to return to their respective national leagues.

The young boy, a Barcelona fan since he started watching football — down to his grandfather’s allegiance to the club – has never seen his team win any honours. The old man hasn’t seen his beloved Blaugrana win in years either. He longs for the 2050s when the team lifted the last of its European trophies; he longs even more for the brief days when Josep Guardiola prowled the sidelines, the days of Xavi, Messi, Iniesta and Puyol. “Oh what a team that was,” he thinks to himself, reminiscing in his mind about the foundations of his fandom, as the Ukrainian referee blows the whistle to signal the beginning of the match.

The Barcelona eleven is made up of players from all over the world — two Spaniards, an Italian, a Russian, a Bulgarian, an American, two Brazilians, a Japanese, an Australian, an Egyptian and a Paraguayan. Twenty minutes into the game, and it’s still goalless. Not much of consequence has happened, except a video referral for a contentious tackle near the edge of the box that the referee had waved on. Replays show that Barcelona’s Japanese center back Haruki Kiyo had got none of the ball and had, in fact, cynically hacked down PSG’s Brazilian winger Falcao. The decision is reversed; PSG is awarded a freekick, and Kiyo receives a blue card (one that is these days accorded for violations that are not so bad as to be sent off for, but are nonetheless more severe than ordinary yellow card offenses). Falcao takes the free kick himself, and blasts it high, wide and handsome. The score remains unaffected.

“How times have changed. Back when I was growing up, we played so fluidly,” the man tells the boy, cursing the rigid 5-4-1 that Barcelona plays today — a return almost to the dreaded Catenaccio days of Italian football under Helenio Herrera some 100 years ago.

“At least we’ve been tight this year, not conceding silly goals like we did last year,” says the boy in reply. “And Anakolov is in such great form. I hope he scores today.”

Anakolov is 6-foot-3, is built like an ox, has two good feet (as they say in football) and can score goals of astonishing variety. He has almost singlehandedly carried Barcelona this season. But the old man yearns for the golden era; he yearns to watch for one last time Barcelona play in a nonpareil style, pinging it around with élan, tiki-taka football as the history books refer to it as.

“This is such anti-football. How can the same team that once under Pep played such a lovely game play like this?” the man asks the boy, who is beginning to get somewhat irritated with the story telling. In truth, at all times except during an actual game, he loves listening to his grandfather speak about the glory days, the days when Barcelona was the best team in the world, a team that redefined football, a team that invented a new style, a team that others could only look at with dreamy-eyed wonder.

Another few minutes pass by; Anakolov has a shot from distance that sails over the bar. PSG is now beginning to put Barcelona under pressure, with Falcao particularly rampant on the right wing.

“I still remember that goal against Sevilla or maybe it was Mallorca, in 2010,” says the old man. “I was your age at the time. Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Villa, Pedro were all involved. Oh boy, how glorious we were. We must have played some 15 one-touch passes, before Villa finished.”

“Players were moving diagonally, vacating constrained areas and taking up new spaces, they were constantly stretching the game,” continued the old man. “Possession was everything for Pep. We’d pummel teams into submission by passing the ball around. Simple, effective passes, and then suddenly a bit of genius from Xavi or Iniesta, which would crack open the opponent’s defense.”

The boy is now beginning to get a bit worried about his team’s chances. The PSG striker Marc Ventura has hit the woodwork once, and has gone close on two other occasions.

“We were never dominated like this in those days,” says the old man. “Pep wouldn’t have tolerated it. Whether we were playing Manchester United in the final of the Champions League or Real Madrid in El Clasico, we controlled the game. We played it on our own terms.”

“What do you mean we played it on our own terms,” the boy queries. “Was it like how Bayern play these days?”

“Oh no, the Germans aren’t a patch on that Barca team,” says the old man. “We would have 70 percent, sometimes 80 percent possession. Every time we gave the ball away, we’d press from the top, we’d hound teams into giving the ball back, and once we got it back, we kept it. Busquets would play neat and simple balls in midfield to Xavi, who was the chief conductor. Xavi would then spray it around if needed to Alves on the right wing, or maybe to Messi or Iniesta ahead of him. It was just such unbounded joy.”

“Why don’t we play like that these days,” the boy asks, even as Barcelona once again gives away possession easily in midfield.

“You would think it’s easy to replicate,” says the old man. “But we had a lot of things going on. We had a bunch of footballers that had grown up together in La Masia. There was a philosophy installed by the great Dutchman, Johan Cruyff.”

“We won 13 trophies in four years then, didn’t we,” says the boy, as he reaches out for a coke from the fridge at half time.

For the first time that evening, the old man smiles nice and wide, showcasing all his missing teeth.

“Yep. Thirteen in four years! Can you believe it,” he says. “I think it was all down to Pep. Yes we had great players, Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, but he gave them the belief. He laid down the style. We were nothing without the ball, so he made sure we kept it, and we kept it well.”

“So was it then that you started supporting Barca,” the boy asks, even as they wait for the second half to start.

“Well, I was just starting to watch football then, all my friends were either Man United or Chelsea or Arsenal fans, they loved the English league. I did too. But once I saw Barca, I was hypnotized. Oh that 2011 Champions League final against United. We killed them. This was the final of the Champions League, but Pep had us playing with such fluidity. Messi, Pedro, Villa up front, Xavi and Iniesta in midfield, it was just gorgeous.”

“You keep talking about that Pedro goal,” says the boy, who has watched the goal himself many times, but isn’t old enough to appreciate the genius in Xavi’s play, yet. He’ll get there, the old man thinks to himself.

“The way Xavi delayed the pass there was just phenomenal. Messi made an initial run, but Xavi waited, Messi took the left back, Evra, I think it was, with him centrally, opening up space for Pedro, and Xavi immediately slipped him through. It was a simple ball, but it was ingenious. It was football of the highest quality.”

The referee blows the whistle; the second half gets underway and almost immediately PSG takes the lead. Their English center back Ryan Jones heads home Falcao’s bending free kick. The old man cusses and then apologizes. The young boy sighs and plants a kick into thin air. They had heard at half time that Bayern were leading 2-0 against Ajax Amsterdam, and if things stayed that way the Bavarians would retain the title.

The man and the boy watched on in anguish as PSG continued to mount wave after wave of attack. Their club was doomed, to another year of failure, to another year of sacrificing a rich tradition.

“I at least wish we didn’t lose playing such rubbish,” says the old man. “Even in Pep’s last important game as our manager, against Chelsea in the Champions League, we stayed true to our style. Chelsea was down to ten men, and we should have probably won. But it wasn’t for a want of trying. We still passed the ball around superbly, we still stretched the game, and we played like Barcelona should.”

Another few minutes elapse, and PSG doubles its lead. Falcao is again the tormenter, planting a cross virtually onto the feet of Ventura, who, this time, finds the net.

“I still remember our 5-0 win against Madrid, like it was yesterday,” says the old man, beginning to show nonchalance towards the ongoing game. “This was against Mourinho’s Madrid, not any team.”

“Yes, I read about it in that book on Barca,” says the young boy, referring to one of the strings of works that have been written about the period. “Xavi scored the first goal, didn’t he? Has there really been no one else like him?”

“Yes, he was special that boy,” says the man. “But Pep gave him the freedom. Under Rijkaard, Xavi was still treated as an anchor, sitting in front of the defence. Pep saw Xavi as the fulcrum. And when Iniesta, Xavi and Messi played together, it was poetry in motion. They’d zip the ball around with pace and precision, and they’d constantly flitter in and out of confined spaces.”

The doorbell rings, and the boy races to get it. Another old man, bald with a disheveled beard and wearing a tweed coat, walks in cane in hand.

“He’s still reminiscing about the old days, isn’t he,” he says to the boy.

“Let me tell you something. I was a Madrid fan, have always been. But what your grandfather tells you is true. That Barca team under Pep was special. Very special. There hasn’t been another team like that since.”

“I read about Di Stefano’s team and the Dutch total football teams,” says the boy. “They said those were very good too.”

“Well, those were before even our times. What I can vouch for is that I haven’t seen football of the calibre that Pep’s Barca produced being repeated, since,” the old man’s friend says.

PSG scores another. Eighty minutes have gone. The league is Bayern’s. The boy switches the television off. The three decide to take a walk.

“That Barcelona team came to define an epoch,” says the guest as the three walk out of the door. “When they beat us 5-0, all us Madridistas could do was to stand up and applaud.”

“We haven’t seen football like that again, and we probably never will.”

The very next day, Manchester United was at home to Queens Park Rangers — another relegation threatened club. A few minutes into the game, Ashley Young showcased the dexterity of an ace diver, and fell down under the slightest of contacts from Rangers defender, Shaun Derry. Referee, Lee Mason, almost immediately blew the whistle, awarded a penalty to United and accorded a red card to Derry (apparently he denied a clear goal-scoring opportunity). Wayne Rooney knocked away the resultant spot-kick, and United went on to win the game 2-0. Instant replays showed that not only did Young dive to win the penalty; he was also a good yard offside when Rooney played the through-ball. It was a farcical decision that would have taken a few seconds to correct, had the referee been given the benefit of a video-replay.

These are but only two instances in a series of refereeing follies that have impacted football games in Europe this season. A solitary error — whether it is a failure to spot a handball in the penalty box or a failure to see the ball cross the goal-line — can directly affect the final result of a match, and therefore even a team’s entire season. While efforts are being made to introduce goal-line technology, there has been little debate on the larger use of video referrals to correct palpable refereeing errors.

The International Football Association Board (IFAB) — the sport’s law making authority — is expected to announce the incorporation of goal-line technology into football’s rulebooks in time for next season. FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, once vehemently opposed to such methods, recently said in a statement: “We don’t want a repeat of last World Cup … I think I can convince the International Football Association Board that we must go forward with technology.” He was referring to Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal in the round of 16 of the World Cup in South Africa against Germany. As you may well remember, England was trailing 1-2 when Lampard’s strike ricocheted off the crossbar and crossed the goal-line, only for the officials to rule that it didn’t. Germany won the game 4-1, and qualified for the quarterfinal.

But the goal line technology, which Blatter now wants in place, at least in time for the next World Cup in 2014, sees opposition from several important stakeholders. Michel Platini, the former French center forward, and president of UEFA — the administrative body governing football in Europe — has been steadfast in his disapproval of such equipment. He believes the use of an additional official behind each of the goal-lines negates the need for technology. Yet, even in European games in which such additional referees have been experimented with, though no direct goal-line controversies may have arisen, questionable decisions continue to mount. In the first-leg of its quarterfinal against AC Milan, Barcelona was denied a clear penalty when Alexis Sanchez was brought down in the box. The additional official was only a few yards from the action, but play continued, and the game ended scoreless. Even if goal-line technology were in place, it wouldn’t have remedied errors of that ilk, which are just as influential in determining the result of a game.

Refereeing mistakes have existed for as long as the sport of football has existed. But with the improvement in television broadcast, the slipups are more obvious than ever before. In almost every other major sport, video referrals are in place in some form or the other. In America’s National Football League, head coaches are allowed two challenges per half to question on-field decisions. While the NFL incorporated these rules as early as in 1999, football’s governing authorities cannot be bothered to even consider the implementation of such challenges. Had the referee been given 60 seconds to examine video evidence of Ivanovic’s goal against Wigan, the decision would almost surely have been overturned, and the game would have continued goalless.

The arguments against the incorporation of technology in football are primarily twofold: that human errors are part of the game’s attraction, and that football is a fluid game without natural breaks, and introducing video referrals will slow it down. Neither argument passes muster. Ask any fan of the game, and they will tell you that there is nothing more infuriating than the outcome of a contest being determined by a referee’s mistake. Manchester United would have perhaps beaten QPR even without the aid of Mason’s decision; but it unmistakably sullied the result.

Claiming that the game’s fluidity will be threatened by video referrals is just as ludicrous — one one only needs to look at the time wasted in treating on-field injuries. A total of ten minutes to review decisions in a match will by no means affect the sport’s pace and movement. Wouldn’t you rather see a few seconds being taken to inspect a video instead of the final result being affected by an obvious refereeing error?

Admittedly, the nitty-gritties of how to implement video referrals need to be worked out. Should team managers be given the option to review two decisions every half, or should the referee suo moto refer decisions that he believes merits a second look? The former choice, perhaps, provides the more balanced solution in terms of helping eliminate obvious error, while ensuring that the flow of a game is not unduly affected. As it stands, in shunning any talk of a referral system, as an option to cut down on officiating errors, football has fallen well behind the times.

Athletic is a quirky club—they still only play with Basque players, even though the qualification as Sid Lowe has explained is now more flexible. To recognize the club’s ethos, it is important to briefly delve on its history, and to note that the Basque country was the first in Spain to be consumed by industrial development. As a result, Bilbao had an extensive relationship with Britain that saw a number of miners and shipbuilders from Sunderland and Southampton working there, and playing football in their spare time. Soon Bilbaínos who were returning from periods of study in England challenged the Brits to games, leading to the formation of two football clubs: Bilbao FC, and Athletic Bilbao. Although the former dissolved slowly, Athletic Bilbao rose in strength, winning four King’s Cups it its first decade, even as PNV, the political party representing Basque nationalism rose in power. The party’s potency was rooted in the smaller businessmen in Bilbao, the same group that made up Athletic’s membership. In 1913, San Mamés was opened; the ideological belief of La Cantera—the “unwritten” restriction that sees Bilbao use only Basque players—was established and the idea of the “Basque” club was born.[1]

But although the club shred its Englishness, in adopting La Cantera, its style of football was for many years linked to the indelible marks laid down by Fred Pentland, its English coach in the 20s and early 30s. As Jonathan Wilson remarked in a piece for the Guardian, Pentland “instituted a direct approach, favoring a robust, ‘English-style’ center-forward, a tradition that endures in the shape of Fernando Llorente, a remarkable combination of finesse and muscularity.”

It’s easy, though, to be pessimistic about Athletic’s commitment to using only Basque players and to see the restriction in the choice of the squad as a pitfall, because the policy also serves as a positive in that it gives the club a clear identity, and its players a defined cause to play for. In all its existence, even though Athletic have only had sporadic success, and haven’t won a trophy in 28 years, the club has never been relegated from Spain’s top division—a truly extraordinary achievement. Last season, continuing in its time-honored style, powered by Llorente’s physical prowess under Joaquín Caparrós’s management, Bilbao finished sixth and qualified for the Europa League. But after Jose Urrutia, a former Bilbao midfielder had won the club’s presidential election, Caparrós was replaced in the summer by the enigmatic Argentine, Marcelo Bielsa.

El Loco Bielsa - the supreme tactician

Bielsa, known as El Loco­—“The Madman”—for his idiosyncratic mannerisms did not on the face of it look a natural fit. For him, the devil has always been in the details. He is renowned for possessing an incredible collection of football matches, one that Pep Guardiola has apparently dipped into in the past. In his time as coach of Argentina and Chile, Bielsa showed a proclivity for the 3-3-1-3 with a high defensive line, involving dynamic pressing from the top. It’s a formation that he tried to impress upon Bilbao early in the season, but after a run of six winless games, he showed the acuity to adapt to the players that he had at his disposal without sacrificing his core beliefs.

With teams increasingly playing a lone center forward, Bielsa moved to a 4-2-1-3, ensuring that he had no more than one spare center back at a time. Javi Martinez, a footballer of exemplary technical proficiency, was moved from central midfield into the backline—a strategy in keeping with Bielsa’s fundamental tenets: with the high defensive line, as Michael Cox helpfully points out in this piece for ESPN, the greater the defenders’ ball-playing ability the more effective the system.

By the time the two legs against Manchester United came up, the Bilbao players had warmed to Bielsa’s methods. When they lost the ball, they pressed furiously from the front—a high-tempo style that can be hugely exhausting, but when employed well, also hugely rewarding. And when with the ball, the players moved it around with pace, and precision, but crucially with directness that gave each move a thrilling purpose. There is always variety in Athletic’s game, in that they like to shift the ball by forming little triangles across the field—especially with their prodigiously talented youngster Iker Muniain, and Markel Susaeta flitting in and out of the wings—but they are also not averse to going long on occasion as they showed in the opening goal of yesterday’s second leg: Fernando Amorebieta’s long, diagonal ball was met sumptuously on the volley by Llorente who had subtly pealed away from Rio Ferdinand’s grasp.

In defense, Bilbao likes to mark man-to-man, while pressing from the top. This video showcasing their defensive system against Barcelona earlier in the season exemplifies their methods. Watching Amorebieta and Martinez shift Fabregas between them is a particularly delightful sight. The video also shows Bilbao’s directness in attack as soon as they win the ball back.

All of this makes for an exhilarating viewing experience, but the toll on the players cannot be underestimated. Playing a high-tempo game every week is no easy task, and as Michael Cox suggested in his analysis for Zonal Marking, it may well be the reason why Bilbao are only seventh in La Liga. But having reached the Copa del Rey final, where it will face Barcelona on May 25, and now with an excellent chance of success in the Europa League, Bielsa’s methods have been vindicated. There will be plenty of suitors for many of its players in the summer, but unlike at other clubs of Bilbao’s size where a chance to play for Barcelona, Madrid or Manchester United can be very tempting, at Bilbao the players are part of something unique and immense. They are indissolubly linked to their Basque identities and Bilbao’s inherent philosophy. Now with Bielsa, there is an added tactical dimension that enhances the club’s quixotic charm. To borrow the phraseology from one of English’s football’s most absurd, and yet strangely delightful chants: there is only one Athletic Bilbao.

Now, Pahars, back in the day – I am not too old, I’d like to believe, but I still love the phrase – was one of my favorites. I’d say I loved him to bits if only I hadn’t completely forgotten him after he left Southampton in 2006, or maybe after they dropped a division by finished bottom in 2004-05. But thinking back now, it’s easy to remember that he was a gem.

Pahars, as you may or may not know, was little. He wasn’t little like Messi or Xavi, but little enough for his Latvian nationality to make him little – “The Little Latvian” they called him. This was a moniker that as peremptory rule commentators had to use every time he scored a goal. “Pahars is in,” they would scream, “And the Little Latvian has pulled it back for Southampton.” The Little Latvian also happened to be a cheeky little fella’. He once nonchalantly nutmegged the mighty Jaap Stam and scored coolly past Massimo Taibi – “wonderfully well done by the Little Latvian,” the commentator said, on this occasion. He also scored two goals against Everton in a season-ending fixture in 1999 that kept the Saints in the league; the first a calm left footed finish, and the second a stopping header – a brace that firmly entrenched him in Saints folklore.

Pahars was the antithesis of Duncan Ferguson, or Big Dunc, the former Everton centre forward, who happily for me doesn’t often pop up in my dreams. Pahars had a sudden burst of pace (as he showed in this jinky run and finish against Wimbledon), but he was mostly all brain and niftiness – Saints fans, I’m sure will remember his goal against their old enemy, Portsmouth, with much fondness: a lovely curler into the bottom left corner. Wikipedia tells me that he scored only 43 goals for Southampton, but I’d like to believe this is some kind of conspiracy theory. For he always seemed to pop up in the box, unnoticed, and with insouciant grace.

Wikipedia also tells me that he is now the manager at Skonto, a Latvian club that sadly isn’t little. They’ve won the Virsliga – the Latvian Higher League – 14 times since 1992. It’s difficult to imagine, Pahars suited and booted, looking all managerly, screaming at the fourth official, and making Rafa Benitez-like finger drawings, but that’s neither the Pahars that I know, nor the one that I want to know. He is “Oh Lord Marian” to the Saints fans. To me, he is – well you guessed it – The Little Latvian.

Post Script: I’d like to believe, this is the first in a series of posts on sportsmen, from the past, who crop up in random conversations, dreams or otherwise. Maybe the next post will be on Little Kalu or Big Niall Quinn.

Football

Best goals: At the end of the day, regardless of the extent of our connoisseurship, it’s the goals that we remember most, so I’ll start there.[2] Dejan Stankovic’s goal in Inter Milan’s Champions League quarterfinal first leg against Schalke was my favourite goal of the year. I have a thing for volleys and long-rangers, and Stankovic’s goal fits both of those categories. It was barely 20 seconds into the game when Esteban Cambiasso floated a ball behind the Schalke defense, which their goalkeeper Manuel Neuer came out bravely to sweep up, launching a header towards the halfway line. Stankovic, hanging about in the center circle, spontaneously volleyed the ball back, remarkably sending the ball over the out of position Neuer, and into the empty goal. It was an extraordinary goal, one that had the quality of bringing a neutral observer to his feet.

Staying with volleys, Robin van Persie’s recent pearler against Everton has to surely be up there with the best goals of the year. Just as Alex Song’s ball over the defense was dropping in front of him, van Persie conjured up a strike of astounding technical purity. He hit it so sweetly that I can still hear the unblemished sound of boot on ball.

It would be injudicious of me not to mention Wayne Rooney’s winner in the Manchester Derby in January here. Unlike Stankovic’s and van Persie’s efforts, I have watched this goal over and over again. The beauty of the strike apart, the goal had a sense of occasion to it, making it all the more special.

Berbarotica: Before it gets too late, I want to get my mention of Dimitar Berbatov away. In spite of being the top scorer in the 2010-11 season, Berbatov has found himself dropped from the Manchester United starting line-up – and often even from the squad – with Sir Alex Ferguson preferring to go with either Javier Hernandez or Danny Welbeck as Rooney’s strike partner. Against Fulham, earlier this month, though, Berbatov came on to score a sublime goal. It wasn’t against the toughest of opponents nor did it have a sense of occasion to it, considering it was the final goal in a 5-0 rout, but it was beautiful nonetheless. Berbatov let Antonio Valencia’s low cross slide past him, deceived a lunging Fulham defender, and then produced a cheeky backheel to find the back of the net. It was deft, languid, imperious and impudent all at once; it was typical Berbatov.

Silkiest skill: Had I seen this goal live, it may well have been my favourite of the year; it comes close nonetheless. Neymar has attracted several comparisons to Lionel Messi already, and this goal against Flamengo provides a microcosm of his unique talents. There were about 15 tricks that he performed in under 20 seconds – first there were a brace of ingenious turns on the left wing, then a one-two to get himself to the edge of the box, followed by an outrageous bit of skill that left the centre backs flummoxed and finally a finish to match the move.

Most elegant player: David Silva has been the most fun player to watch this year. He doesn’t slalom his way past opponents like Messi; he doesn’t have the pace and power that Cristiano Ronaldo possesses; nor does he dictate the tempo of a game in the manner of a Xavi or an Iniesta, but he is certainly the most elegant player going around. Silva doesn’t run past opponents, he glides away from them with a balletic grace. Everything he does on the pitch seems to have a rare beauty to it. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that he is left footed.

Best game: My favourite game of the year was Arsenal’s 5-3 defeat of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in October. Minutes to go, Arsenal have worked their balls off to come back into the game and go 4-3 up – aided no doubt by some abject defending – and just when you think they are going to play sensibly, and defend the lead, they bomb forward, scoring a fifth. It was a game full of thrills and spills, fantastic moves and schoolboy defending, but it was such fun! [I can’t find a video of the game, so you’ll have to make do with reading Scott Murray’s MBM in the Guardian]

Oh Scholesy! I’ve missed Paul Scholes, and unimaginably so. I miss the long-range blasts; the beautiful, precise diagonal balls; the little turns to get away from prying tacklers in the middle of the pitch; the change of pace that allowed him the time and space to dictate play; the late bursts into the penalty box; the cunning short passes that helped Manchester United retain possession; heck I’ve even missed those dirty tackles. [You can read my tribute to Scholes, who retired in May, here]

*****

Cricket

Favourite Moment: India’s World Cup victory seems such a long time ago after the humiliation in the test series in England and the recent loss at the MCG. But M.S. Dhoni’s six to seal the win against Sri Lanka in the final at the Wankhede, will remain etched in memory forever. I do, however, want to forget Ravi Shastri’s robotic, headache-inducing commentary that accompanied the moment.

Best ball: James Anderson was terrific during India’s tour of England this past summer, and his delivery to snare V.V.S. Laxman in the second innings of the second test at Trent Bridge, Nottingham was, perhaps, the ball of the year. It seemed to move both ways, first swinging into Laxman, before moving, ever so slightly off the pitch, away from the outside edge to hit the top of off-stump. Geoff Boycott reckoned that it was a simple case of Laxman missing the ball: “He played down Bakerloo and it went down Piccadilly,” he said, but Anderson’s skill certainly can’t be discounted.

Best innings: Alastair Cook made oodles of runs this year and Rahul Dravid batted with obstinacy and courage in the series in England, but neither produced an innings of particularly captivating worth. Pakistan had a terrific year, with Misbah Ul-Haq, Younis Khan and Taufeeq Umar, all making lots of runs, but I haven’t watched enough of them to offer a valuable comment. So the honour will have to go to one of Mahela Jayawardene or Ian Bell, the former for his innings of sparkling elegance in the World Cup Final, and the latter for his splendid late-cut riddled century against India at Trent Bridge. I’ll let you take your pick. I enjoyed both these knocks immensely.

Sehwagology: Virender Sehwag transcended a few boundaries in his brutal 219 from 149 balls at Indore against the West Indies. I didn’t name it in the best innings category for a regulation ODI has, in my opinion at any rate, lost significance. Nonetheless, it was a spectacular effort that at many levels defied description and served as a reminder of not only Sehwag’s genius but also of his contribution to the game. He is, at once, a revolutionary and a visionary.

Best contest: Dale Steyn’s two spells to start the first two sessions on day 3 of the Cape Town test between South Africa and India was as nifty a spell of swing bowling that one could have hoped to see. That Sachin Tendulkar faced 48 of the 66 balls bowled in those spells made it that much more of a spectacle. It was marvelous; test cricket at its very best. Second ball of the first over, Steyn beat Tendulkar with a gorgeous away singer that moved at tremendous pace. Three balls later, another outswinger, only this time, Tendulkar got to the pitch of it and drove it gloriously through extra-cover for a boundary. After a luckless first spell, Steyn came back after lunch to snare Pujara LBW with a gem that straightened upon pitching on leg. In his next over, he had Dhoni caught at third slip with another trademark outswinger. It was a glorious, beautiful day of test cricket, an innings in which Steyn picked up five wickets and Tendulkar made 146.

******

Tennis

Best match: It was THAT match in which Novak Djokovic produced THAT shot. US Open semifinals, the Serb goes down two sets to love against Federer, then wins sets three and four only to trail 5-3, 40-15 in the decider. Everyone who’s watching it thinks, and knows even, that it’s over. Federer places his first serve wide of Djokovic’s forehand, a little undercooked, and boom, the return is past the Swiss even before he’s seen it. It was all Djokovic from there on. To me, the forehand on match point was a moment of pure inspiration. After the match, Federer called it a lucky stroke, he even seemed to question Djokovic’s moral right to go for that shot. Well, there is no arguing that Djokovic took an all or nothing approach, but what else could one expect?

Best point: Novak Djokovic has produced several remarkable points this year, many of them winners from inconceivable angles, when his whole body was seemingly stretched like rubber. But this honour belongs to Rafael Nadal. In the final of the Madrid Masters against Djokovic, after a rally of astounding interplay, Nadal somehow found himself at the net and produced a touch volley, which in turn brought Djokovic forward. The Serb, with his tremendous foot speed, got there with time to spare, and conjured a superb lob, that Nadal first tried to smash on his backhand side, on the turn, only to find it to be beyond his reach. But not one to give up, he chased after it, and manufactured a tweener – a between the legs effort. Only, this was no ordinary tweener. This wasn’t one of those, let-me-just-try-and-stay-in-the-point efforts. It was a tweener-lob – adroit, imaginative, and simply exquisite.

Quote of the year: “Umpires are like emotional girlfriends — once they make up their minds, there’s no point in arguing”: The incomparable Janko Tipsarevic

Comeback player: Almost bizarrely, in a year in which he didn’t win a Grand Slam for the first time since 2002, Roger Federer has to be considered as the comeback player of the year. Since losing to Djokovic in the US Open semifinals, he went 17-0, winning titles in Basel, Paris and London, regained some of the lost aura and once again looked an imperious, graceful force. Federer’s run of form at the end of the year has set up 2012 beautifully.

Player to watch in 2012: Andy Murray is still the best of the rest as far as the rankings are concerned, but the one who came closest to denting the oligarchy at the top in 2011 was Jo Wilfried Tsonga. The big Frenchman was often imposing and fantastic, particularly in his come-from-behind win in the Wimbledon quarterfinals against Federer. And crucially, unlike Murray, he seems to believe that he is capable of beating the top three at the highest of stages.

Most disappointing player: Richard Gasquet – as has been the case for each of the last five or six years. Anyone who can stroke a backhand as regally as he does has no right to be losing as many matches as he does.

Best parliamentarian: Not sure this category should be called “best” parliamentarian, for I have no clue what work Marat Safin – who was elected to the new Duma after elections in early December – actually does. But I’d imagine – or I’d like to believe, at any rate – that anything Safin does, he does it with panache. And for what it’s worth, Sampras had this to say about Safin’s victory: “Marat is very intelligent, articulate and well-spoken so I think it’s great that he’s getting involved in government in his homeland. In 20 years, Marat will be the President of Russia! Trust me, this guy is going to go a long way.”

[1] I’ve watched a whole lot of sport this year, like most other years, but I’m restricting this piece to football, cricket and tennis, the holy trinity as far as I’m concerned.

[2] It’s likely I have failed to mention a number of quality goals in this post. That would either be because I didn’t find them worthy enough or that I simply don’t remember them (I wanted to list out moments which I can conjure from memory as opposed to watching a YouTube compilation of best goals in 2011 and picking my favourite).

***

2. The 3 and half at the back: Linear reporting can rarely do full justice to a football game. For a game, over the course of the 90 minutes will have countless ebbs and flows – there could be phases of seemingly dull irrelevance that are nonetheless crucial to the final outcome. This past week, Barcelona defeated Real Madrid 3-1 in the Clasico in a game that even if not stunningly thrilling from a lay viewer’s perspective was particularly fascinating from a tactical standpoint. Barcelona essentially started with a 4-3-3, but with Real beginning to press heavily into Barca’s half, Guardiola shifted Dani Alves further forward, pulled Puyol to the right and dropped Busquets even further back. Jonathan Wilson – the guru of football tactics – describes this as a three and a half at the back. Busquets, Wilson says, was crucial from so many different angles. “We are used to seeing Busquets dropping back from midfield to become a centre-back; but here he was doing the opposite, stepping out from the back four to become a midfielder. Perhaps this is the logical outcome for a side that flips so often between a back three and a back four: it ends up playing a back three-and-a-half.” Read Wilson’s piece here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/dec/13/the-question-3-1-4-2-formation-rise) and the ever-excellent Michael Cox’s post-match analysis here (http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/12/11/real-madrid-1-3-barcelona-tactics/). Also read some of Sid Lowe’s reflections here (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/sid_lowe/12/13/clasico.thoughts/index.html). Only one word for Andres Iniesta, he says, and that’s “Astonishing.” Who would argue with that?

***

3. On Boogaard and Enforcers: The former Minnesota Wild and New York Rangers left winger, Canadian Derek Boogaard died earlier this year from an accidental drug and alcohol overdoes while recovering from a concussion. Boogaard fulfilled the unofficial role of the Enforcer for his teams – he was one of the NFL’s most feared fighters, and over the course of his career, he suffered multiple concussions. In a superb three-part series for the New York Times, John Branch explores the life of Boogaard, the circumstances that led to his ultimate death and the ugly role of the enforcer – “The enforcer, sometimes mocked as a goon or euphemized as a tough guy, may be hockey’s favorite archetype. Enforcers are seen as working-class superheroes—understated types with an alter ego willing to do the sport’s most dangerous work to protect others. And they are underdogs, men who otherwise might have no business in the game,” writes Branch. Read the series here (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sports/hockey/derek-boogaard-a-boy-learns-to-brawl.html?_r=1) and watch the corresponding videos here (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/12/04/sports/hockey/boogaard-video.html).

***

4. The Paul and Griffin axis: Chris Paul is, without question, the best point guard in the NBA. This past week he seemed to be on the verge of a move to the Los Angeles Lakers from the New Orleans Hornets, but after an intervention by NBA Commissioner David Stern, he moved instead to L.A.’s other team, the less fancied Clippers. While this ensures a mouthwatering partnership between Paul and the league’s most dazzling slam dunker Blake Griffin, as Bethlehem Shoals argues, in The Classical, the “Clippers are still the Clippers.” The best that Paul and Griffin can do, Shoals says, is make us forget that the team exists (http://theclassical.org/articles/blake-griffin-is-the-major-market). If you’re interested in knowing how Paul is going into fit into the Clippers offense, read Sebastian Pruiti in Grantland here (http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7359902/how-chris-paul-fits-clippers-offense)

***

5. Gustafson fighting a speech defect: Swedish professional golfer Sophie Gustafson, a five-time winner on the LPGA tour, suffers from a speech impediment. Watch this superb, inspirational five-minute video on Golf Channel in which Gustafson “opens up about her speech and her life. (http://www.golfchannel.com/media/golf-central-november-24-sophie-gustafson/)

***

Follow us on our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/CriticalTwenties

You can follow us on our new twitter account @Ctwenties

Also with the NBA season finally set to get underway, Longform.org aggregated a set of six wonderful stories “about the lives of great basketball players, on the court and off,” including David Halberstam’s immortal piece in the New Yorker in 1998 on Michael Jordan, which is a must-read, if you’re a fan of basketball or any sport for that matter.

***

Gary Speed, 42, shockingly and suddenly, died earlier this week, apparently by taking his own life. As someone who grew up watching football in the 1990s, Speed, to me, represented a colossal figure, the archetypical professional that could never be discounted. Regardless of which club you supported, Speed was a player you respected – always fair, and always a threat to the opposition, with his pace down the wings in his early days, and his sense of positional awareness and tactical acuity in the latter part of his career. Speed scored in every season of the Premier League, right from its inception in 1992-1993 to 2007-08, his last season in the league with Bolton Wanderers. Tributes poured across all football grounds in England, including one at Elland Road, “As Leeds United staged what amounted to a communal public elegy for one of British football’s favourite sons of the past 20 years,” in the words of Barney Ronay. Speed began his career at Leeds, where he won his only league championship, the year before the Premier League’s foundation. Sky Sports produced a touching 4-minute video with many of Speed’s peers, including fellow Welshmen, Ryan Giggs and Mark Hughes, paying tribute to their one-time teammate. At a midtown bar in New York, Legends 33, hordes of Newcastle fans who had gathered to watch their game against Chelsea in the early Saturday morning hours, joined in the 1-minute applause prior to kick-off and continued with chants of “Speedo Speedo” throughout the course of the game. David Lacey, wrote in the Guardian, that “football matters precisely because it does not matter that much.” Nick Szczepanik’s touching obituary, again in the Guardian, and The Telegraph’s collection of images showcasing Speed’s careers are also worth looking at.

***

In what has been a particularly depressing week for football fans, the flamboyant Brazilian, Socrates, 57, died, in Sao Paulo after suffering a septic shock. Socrates was the captain of a ridiculously talented Brazil team in the 1982 World Cup Finals when the country to the horror of its fans that extend to date failed to go past the second round. Socrates was also one of the few qualified doctors to play football at the highest level. Read the mandatory Brian Glanville obituary here; an interview that Socrates gave Alex Bellos last year, in which he discusses a new book that he was writing that was to release in time for the 2014 World Cup Finals, and Gabrielle Marcotti’s tribute in the Wall Street Journal.

***

Staying with football, Sam Fayyaz has written a fine piece in The Run of Play comparing Fernando Redondo and Javi Martinez, titled Generalissimo. “There is something uncannily similar about the manner in which they impose themselves on a match: almost managerial or authoritarian without being brutal or grotesque in the way of a Nigel De Jong or Roy Keane. There is a kind of death-and-taxes inevitability about their centrality in the proceedings of any given match,” Fayyaz wrote. He also makes reference to Redondo’s sumptuous skill – a most ridiculous nutmeg of Henning Berg that I can see 100 times a day and not get bored – en route to assisting Raul in Real Madrid’s 3-2 defeat of Manchester United at Old Trafford in the Champions League quarterfinal in April 2000. The nutmeg, Jonathan Wilson later wrote, in the Guardian, had a substantial impact on the development of football tactics in the noughties.

***

Captaincy has provided an impetus to Michael Clarke’s batting and in the first innings of Australia’s commanding triumph over New Zealand at the Gabba, he produced his third century in four tests; yet another splendid innings littered with the most sparkling drives. Read, Chris Barrett in the Sydney Morning Herald.

***

Mukul Kesavan’s piece on why Tendulkar’s 100^th ton sholdn’t matter, meanwhile has garnered much attention, so much so that the article, which first appeared in the Telegraph, has since been republished by Yahoo and Cricinfo. Kesavan says, amongst his other arguments, “The real cricketing illiterates are the people who believe that adding ODI centuries to Test centuries and arriving at a hundred gives you a heroic landmark. It doesn’t. This isn’t just a meaningless statistic, it’s a pernicious one, because it equalizes two different orders of achievement.” But aren’t all statistical appreciations inherently whimsical? Who is to say that a hundred should be feted while a well-made 88 shouldn’t? But for whatever reason, be it the decimal system or something else, the order of history has shown that hundreds have always been considered a significant achievement. Now, nobody – at least nobody in their right minds – is arguing that statistical feats are the only claim to greatness, but cricket is a game of numbers, and statistical attainments have always been treasured. Kesavan’s argument that to celebrate Tendulkar’s impending feat would result in equalizing two different orders of achievement also doesn’t cut it. That Tendulkar has been so successful in both formats of the game should, in fact, augment his claims to absolute greatness. Jacques Kallis, the second on the list of Test centurions – with 40 hundreds – has a total of 57 international tons; Ricky Ponting has a total of 69; Rahul Dravid and Brian Lara, fourth and sixth on the Test list, have 101 between them. All of this only shows how staggering Tendulkar’s achievement would be. And in any case, 100 100s has an amazing ring to it, and in the ultimate analysis, statistical appreciation is purely arbitrary, as Tim de Lisle pointed out in a piece in this year’s Wisden Almanack.

***

Addendum: On Socrates, also read this piece by the always superb Alan Jacobs in The Run of Play. He writes: “He was the anti-Bartleby: Melville’s scrivener went through life saying, “I would prefer not to.” Sócrates went through life saying, “I prefer to.” I prefer to drink; I prefer to smoke; I prefer to back-heel the ball; I prefer to take penalties without a silly run-up. I even prefer to get a degree in medicine, to be Doctor Sócrates.”

Let us, though, forget the scoreline – a commanding 3-1 – and concentrate for a moment on the methods, for it is the style of victory more than the score which is likely to define this epoch. At the core of Barcelona’s triumph, paradoxically, isn’t Lionel Messi, widely and rightly considered the best player in the world, but Xavi Hernandez their pint sized midfield maestro. Xavi is Barcelona’s ‘quarterback’, every attack flows through him and it is he who helps them command space with an air of hitherto unseen imperiousness. He passes the ball, both short and long, both in acute angles and in straight lines, both along the ground and in the air, with equal simplicity but never it seems without purpose. The purpose, if one were to define it, is a quest for space, a pursuit ingrained in the club’s philosophy by Johan Cruyff.

The blueprint for Barcelona’s play lies in the methods adopted by the great Ajax and the Netherlands sides of the late 1960s to early 1970s, in which Cruyff played the chief protagonist. Under the stewardship of Rinus Michels, football was revolutionalised. No doubt, it has unconsciously always been about space, but as artist Jeroen Henneman says in David Winner’s outstanding book, ‘The Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football’, “the big change in Dutch football happened when these ideas became words, when Cruyff and Michels started talking about space.”

Winner seeks to conceptualise this understanding of space. He draws parallels between Dutch architecture, art and football. He says: “’Total football’ was, among other things, a conceptual revolution based on the idea that the size of any football field was flexible and could be altered by a team playing on it. In possession, Ajax – and later the Dutch national team – aimed to make the pitch as large as possible, spreading play to the wings and seeing every run and movement as a way to increase and exploit the available space. ”

In many ways, Winner argues, this expansion of space is akin to the wonder that marks Dutch architecture. He says: “Because of their strange landscape, the Dutch are a nation of spatial neurotics… Space is an inordinately precious commodity, and for centuries the use of every square centimeter of every Dutch city, field and polder has been carefully considered and argued over.” This paucity, Winner says has contributed towards the Dutch thinking innovatively about space, a constant urge to find it where seemingly none exists, a philosophy that has been carried over to the football pitch.

Of course it is easy to argue that these are but tenuous links, utterly lacking in credence. But as Rudi Fuchs, a director of a modern art museum in Amsterdam argues in Winner’s book, ‘every country and culture has its own way of seeing.’ He says: “The psychologists deny these differences exist, but its there in Dutch art and culture. Ask any Dutch person to draw the horizon and they will draw a straight line. If you ask someone form Yorkshire or Tuscany or anywhere else, it will have bumps and hills. A Scandinavian blue is cold and steely, completely unlike a blue in Italy. Italian painting is rich in warm reds, but when red appears in the work of a northern artist like Munch, its blood in the snow.” He goes on to add that these ‘climatic and geographically shaped aesthetic differences are inevitably reflected in football.’ “Catenaccio is like a Titan painting – soft, seductive and languid. The Italians welcome and lull you and seduce you into their soft embrace, and score a goal like the thrust of a dagger. The Dutch make their geometric patterns… The English like to run and fight. When Gullit tried to transplant this Dutch art to Newcastle, he was trying to do something impossible. He was bound to fail.”

Pertinently, it may be noted that, Fuchs fails to mention Spain or in fact Catalunya. But it is there that Cruyff’s notion of space has found its most glorious recognition. Cruyff took Dutch art to Barcelona, and the club has augmented this conception through its own varying approaches to the creation of space.

First, a look at the tactical basis that underpins the method. At Ajax and with the Netherlands, Michels and his successors adopted a fluid, flexible 4-3-3 with a centre-back pushing forward whenever possible to make it a 3-4-3. Essentially, though, these positional notations were only that – notations. In practice, the system involved rapid interchange of positions, wingers finding themselves in central defense, central midfielders moving into full back, and so on. For all its attacking vitality, it is important to note that defensive solidity was never compromised, if the left back was caught up field, one of the central midfielders was always on hand to cover the space. The inherent philosophy, as Jonathan Wilson points out in this piece for the Guardian, was simple – ‘pass and move when in possession, squeeze the play when out of it.’

In many ways, the Ajax philosophy served as the template for Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan side and the more recent Arsenal team under Arsene Wenger. The idea, though, has stayed at the forefront of Barcelona’s thinking ever since Michels moved to the club as coach in 1971, with Cruyff joining him two years later. Their axis hadn’t the success that it had at Ajax, but nonetheless the processes were put in place. During Cruyff’s six-year tenure as a player, the club won only a single La Liga title. Its ethos though was altered. Success alone wasn’t what the club craved for, but success through a certain style.

Between Cruyff’s time as a player and when he re-joined the club as manager in 1988, it won the Championship only once, in 1984-85 under Terry Venables. But once Cruyff took over the reins, the contours of the club were dramatically altered, laying the basis for its greatness, which has been achieved with rare panache. The club won four consecutive La Ligas between 1990-91 and 1993-94, playing a seductive, fearsome brand of football that emphasized a mastery over space. At its pivot was Josep Guardiola, the current Barcelona manager. He was the Xavi of the ‘Dream Team’, the one who took control of the ball in the middle of the park, acting as the conductor of the orchestra. The expansive style of the Dream Team, though, whilst magnificent to watch, had its drawbacks. Relevantly, it won the Champions League only once, in 1991-92, losing 4-0 in the final two years later to Fabio Capello’s AC Milan. The team containing Guardiola, Romario, Stoichkov and Koeman was undone by a disciplined Milan effort that was aimed at targeting specific weaknesses of Barcelona – particularly spaces behind their fullbacks, which were ruthlessly exposed by Dejan Savicevic.

Cruyff’s contributions to Barcelona though do not end there. In 1979, he played a pivotal role in convincing the then President of the club, Josep Nunez, in remodeling La Masia, the club’s academy to accommodate a greater number of students, and centering its methods on the famed Ajax academy. Instilled in the youngsters at La Masia are the philosophies of Cruyff. Apprentices are taught to think innovatively, to think in terms of space. They are trained to press and compress space when defending and expand the playing area when in attack. Amongst its foremost and earliest graduates was Guardiola himself and Guillermo Amor, both of whom played fundamental roles in the Dream Team’s success.

Since then, the academy has produced a battery of stars, all entrenched in the Barcelona way, including Carles Puyol, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique, Pedro Rodriguez and Victor Valdes. The success of the first team for a period was steady, without being spectacular. In 2005-06, the club won the Champions League for the second time in its history, under the management of Frank Riijkard – more indications of a Dutch touch. But while Xavi and Puyol played important roles, the win was essentially achieved through the attacking flair of Ronaldinho, a Brazilian bought from Paris St. German. Much of its football was eye-catching, but the manner of the victory was rarely imperious. Defensively, the team had many frailties, and its methods were far from the flawlessness that is now on show. Following a second consecutive season without league triumph in 2007-08, Riijkard was shown the door, and Guardiola, who was then the head coach of the “B’ team, took over.

And since then there football has attained otherworldliness. They have won the Spanish league title in each of the last three years and the Champions League twice, all the while adhering to the high ideals of Cryuff. Opponents have been forced into submission through a graceful, enthralling style of football. But Guardiola has not merely aped Cruyff in his methods. The basic paradigm, no doubt, remains the same, but the nature of the pressing game that today’s Barcelona play is more complete. It hasn’t the totality of the Ajax sides of the 1970s – indeed it is implausible for a team to play on such lines in today’s tactical regime – but it involves pressing from the top in a manner, perhaps, never witnessed in the past.

Without the ball, as Guardiola often points out, ‘Barcelona are a disastrous team’.  So they hound like a pack of chasing wolves from the front, compressing space the moment they lose the ball. Messi, Villa and Pedro are renowned for their attacking prowess, but they play just as crucial a role defensively. They pursue the opposition in every corner of the pitch – even simple passes rolled out from the opposition’s goalkeeper to one of his defenders is not spared. For Barcelona, possession is the foundation for both attack and defence. Once they win the ball back, though, they retain it with élan for what seems like ages. In the Champions League this season, they have kept possession of the ball on an average of about 70% of the time every game, an astonishingly brilliant figure.

There is of course a criticism that at times their passing can be tedious, an end in itself, which often strips an element of fun out of their game. This, though, is a matter of aesthetics. Perhaps their style isn’t as thrillingly gorgeous as the Ajax and the Netherlands teams of the early 1970s, but as Simon Barnes once remarked of complaints against Pete Sampras being too boring, if you find excellence tedious, then sport is not what you should look towards.

Guardiola has ensured that the Cruyff philosophy remains the basis for Barcelona’s play, but by getting his team to relentlessly press the opposition in all areas of the pitch, he has augmented the model even further. As Sir Alex Ferguson said: “Guardiola has created a different philosophy for Barcelona. I think the Cruyff era laid the foundation for the width they used in their game and using the full size of the pitch. If you look at their midfield players over the last 20 years, they have all been small. What has changed is the pressing and the areas in which they press the ball. That is what Guardiola has brought to the team.”

The beauty in Barcelona’s play, ironically for a team that plays with such elegance, lies in their discipline, exemplified best by Xavi. He presses the opposition hard, and when he is given the ball, he almost never loses it – evident from the fact that he converted 124 out of the 136 passes he attempted in the Final, more than the entire Manchester United midfield put together. The laboured accusation that Xavi only passes the ball sideways and a lack of directness means that it is easy to boast of such statistics falls like a leaf at the peak of autumn.

A glimpse at the opening goal scored by Pedro in the Final is enough to convince one of Xavi’s supreme talents. It was an education in practical passing. He sauntered near the edge of the United box, waiting for players to flit around in front of him, until the perfect opportunity presented itself. And when Pedro darted outwards, even as the drifting Messi took Evra inwards with him, Xavi played the ball diagonally to Pedro, with the weight on the pass and its direction immaculate. As Cruyff says, the simple ball is what is very often the most elegant solution. Arriving at that simple ball, though, takes genius and Xavi belongs to a rare species that possesses that special gift.

It is a testament also to Guardiola’s talents that he has ensured that his team’s standards never dip. They of course possess the sheer unexplainable brilliance of Messi, who can win games on his own. But it is as a collective unit that they are most impressive. Guardiola has constructed a work of art that is no doubt based on conceptions of space theorized by Cruyff, but by imparting his own contributions in terms of pressing and an ability to defend in numbers, he has made an imprint that transcends all boundaries of greatness. For instance, in Dani Alves, Barcelona have a marauding right back, who is crucial to their attacking plans. But when Alves attacks, Sergio Busquets unfailingly sits deep to cover for the space that can open up behind the fullback. This is but an example to display their adherence to all aspects of the game. Every player in the side is attuned to the team’s methods – pass and move and look for space.

Perhaps, Guardiola’s work in moulding a team of such mesmeric brilliance is like that of Antoni Gaudi, the great Catalan architect, who adhered to tradition even while creating the most modern of structures. Guardiola may not go on to create an impregnable empire, but his side has already done enough to go down in the annals of history as one of the greatest of all time.