At the end of Barcelona's match with Málaga on Saturday afternoon, the club's president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, insisted: "Now we have to think about Manchester City." It was tempting to conclude that they already were. The intensity and attitude that had defined them over the last six weeks, and of which Leo Messi had been speaking just two days before, had gone. Instead, there was a glimpse of the failings Barcelona thought they had left behind and a first defeat in 12 games.
The day was set up as the day that Europe's most on-form team would climb to the top of the league table and Messi would overtake Cristiano Ronaldo as the continent's top scorer, ready to head to Manchester and take a decisive Champions League lead at the Etihad. Yet it ended with a team that had been averaging almost four goals a game unable to manage four shots on target. You wondered if it had ended with Manuel Pellegrini on the phone to his former club, too.
Málaga have now played Barcelona twice, drawing one and winning the other. It is not just that Javi Gracia's team have not conceded a goal in 180 minutes against Barcelona, it is that they have limited them to a total of only three shots on target across the two games. "We know that they hurt you when they get behind you, so we tried to force them inside at every opportunity," said their Cameroonian goalkeeper, Carlos Kameni. Messi, with 349 goals in his previous 349 games for Barça, had seen a single shot head towards Kameni's goal.
If that sounds simple, it is not. No-one has shut Barcelona down quite like Málaga; no-one had shut them down at all lately. Saturday’s defeat came just as things were going so well. Barcelona’s first game in 2015 started with Messi and Neymar on the bench and ended with them defeated 1-0 at Real Sociedad. A crisis ensued. Messi missed the next training session because of gastroenteritis just as, with unfortunately impeccable timing, the club captain Xavi Hernández admitted in an interview that “gastroenteritis” is a catch-all excuse that often disguises other issues.
Reports emerged of a confrontation between Messi and Luis Enrique, later confirmed by the defender Jérémy Mathieu. At the time, no-one confirmed or denied stories which suggested that the relationship was strained. Players were not sure where Luis Enrique was going - in 28 games, there had been 28 line-ups - and the talk was of a team losing its identity.
All this took place to a backdrop of institutional crisis for which on-field problems became the detonator. The sporting director, Andoni Zubizarreta, was sacked. One of his assistants, the former captain Carles Puyol, walked away that same afternoon. And presidential elections were called in a bid, Bartomeu said, to "reduce the tension". Luis Enrique admitted that the sacking of Zubizarreta had "weakened" him, but denied that there had been an ultimatum. The president, though, said he had intervened.
If it had been a power play, it felt like Messi had won. The logical conclusion was that they had all won. As one columnist pointedly put it a few weeks later: “Barcelona have been flying since Messi was the coach and Lionel was the president.” After a week of silence, Messi talked after Barcelona had beaten Atlético Madrid, complaining at the “lies” that had been written, but the crisis - if that’s what it had been - was cathartic. Played out in public, there was an obligation to react, and a run began.
Barcelona beat Atlético three times in three games, two cup wins to go with that league success, having not been able to defeat them in six last season. They won 11 games in a row and scored 42 goals. The change in attitude was as startling as the speed against Atlético: Barcelona were aggressive and dynamic, Messi almost hyperactive, pushing Atlético back and keeping on coming at them. They would come at others too. It was not just the results that had got better, it was the sensations too.
Something had changed and for once it wasn’t the team: for the first time in 29 games, Barcelona played the same starting XI two games in a row. There have been rotations since, but they are reduced. A sense of what the preferred XI is grows and now, with good results, the rotations are judged differently, the eternal opportunism of the media. Now Luis Enrique is praised for keeping them fit and fresh.
Up front there are no doubts now and Barcelona, the team identified with its midfield, has come to be identified with its front three. Messi returned to the right, as a starting point at least, allowing Luis Suárez to play through the middle, while Neymar went left. The movement was constant.
Together, Messi and Neymar have 26 and 17 goals respectively, the league’s second- and third-top scorers. And while the goals resisted to start with, Suárez’s work benefited his team-mates, giving them something they lacked: edge, aggression and high-pressing. A shift became apparent that was both a cause and a consequence of the way the three played: Barcelona began beating teams on the counterattack.
Atlético were beaten by a team that at times played like Atlético do. “We have two types of play that are very different,” Messi said. “We can play on the counter taking advantage of the space available because of the speed of our forwards, and we can also play the way that Barcelona always have. We have not lost the philosophy of playing with patience and combining.”
Messi, Neymar and Suárez were described by one newspaper this week as a “trident for the ages”. Until this weekend, they had played 15 games together, winning 13 and losing two - the first of those, Suárez’s debut against Real Madrid. They have scored 68 between them in all competitions: 37 for Messi, 24 for Neymar and seven for Suárez. They have also provided 32 assists: 18 for Messi, four for Neymar and 10 for Suárez. A week ago, Barcelona beat Levante 5-0, featuring another Messi hat-trick and - for the team’s fifth - a superb overhead kick from Suárez.
Asked after that game why he had not taken Messi off with the match won, Luis Enrique replied: “Why? The idea is to enjoy him as much as we can.” Messi, too, appeared to be enjoying himself. And that is the single most important factor of course. He looked faster and more involved than he has for a year.
“I am 27 now. I could do anything before and my body didn’t feel the effects,” he said. “Now I am trying to rest better and control my food. I’m very happy about how things are going. Last season was not easy for me: my challenge is to be the player I was before.” Over the last month, in which he has scored 26 goals, he may even have been better than before. And it all started at Anoeta.
“That defeat at Real Sociedad brought a change in attitude in the team,” Messi said last week. “The dressing room wanted to change the image it had given. And the change is very noticeable. Recently, we have gone out on to the pitch with more desire to pressure opponents and to attack them. We have to try to keep up the positive run.”
On Saturday, it came to an end. On Tuesday night, Barcelona will hope that it starts up once again. Guardian Service
