Spain's Extraordinary Sports Ego

[Bitter]

Spain's Extraordinary Sports Ego
From Nadal and Alonso to Barcelona's Champions League Final, Talk of an 'Invincible Armada'
By AUSTIN KELLEY
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124338227331456535.html

When Barcelona eliminated Chelsea to reach the Champions League soccer final -- with a bit of help from poor refereeing -- the Spanish press proclaimed divine justice was done.

"Sometimes soccer is generous to the virtuous teams," wrote Ramon Besa in El Pais, one of Spain's most popular daily newspapers, "and cruel to the evil teams."

Barcelona was not only morally ordained, it was intellectually superior, according to Daniel Alves, the team's Brazilian fullback. Mr. Alves told the press that no English teams could match Barcelona's brain power.

"We want to make sure no English win in Rome," he said. "We will use our intelligence to beat their force. The mind will overcome the body."

You might almost think Lionel Messi and his Barca teammates were gurus, not soccer players.

FC Barcelona, which faces Manchester United on Wednesday in the Champions League final in Rome, has garnered especially lavish praise in the press. The team is a symbol of Catalan resistance and known for its dramatic flair on the field.

Yet this boosterism is part of a larger renaissance of Spanish sports -- and thus the florid rhetoric. After decades of relative athletic ineptitude, Spain has emerged as an international sporting superpower. It boasts the world's top-ranked soccer team, the last three Tour de France winners, the FIBA world champion basketball team, the world's top-ranked men's tennis player, Rafael Nadal, and two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso. Consequently, the country's athletes and sports fans are expressing a striking new national pride.

Last year, Marca, Spain's leading sports newspaper, proclaimed the arrival of "El Siglo de Oro (2)," the Second Golden Age, comparing the country's recent sports success with the 16th and 17th centuries when "the country lived at a cultural apex in which all the arts flourished" and "the Spanish style extended through the world." In another headline, it called the Davis Cup-winning tennis team the "Invincible Armada."

"Every week, another triumph in Spanish sport is documented," says Santiago Segurola, deputy editor of Marca, "and these triumphs are contagious, especially with the younger generations."

Barcelona, which is far from a national team, has still managed to gain support from newspapers like Marca, which normally back arch-rival Real Madrid. "Even the fans of Real Madrid have recognized the mastery of Barca this year," says Mr. Segurola.

Part of this endorsement stems from Spain's victory in last year's European Championship. "The Spanish team," Mr. Segurola says, "included several Barca players, defining the team's style, a style unique in its creativity and its notable difference from the rest of the teams."

Spanish fans demand more than victory; they demand their teams to play in a certain way. Real Madrid, for example, has fired coaches several times within weeks of winning championships because the teams were not aesthetically pleasing and attack-minded enough. As former club president Ramon Calderon once said, the team "cannot have a manager who is happy to win every game, 1-0."

"Spaniards do see football in a way that the British in particular can find puzzling," says John Hooper, the British author of "The New Spaniards," an account of Spain post-dictator Francisco Franco. "For us, the only thing that matters is the result. But many Spanish fans demand espectáculo as well."

Some observers see a connection between the emphasis on aesthetic soccer and the tradition of bullfighting, a sport in which the "result" is known ahead of time. "It's not just killing the bull; it's how you do it," says John Carlin, a sportswriter in Madrid. "It's the dash, it's the elan; it's the bravery; it's the spectacle."

Before Euro 2008, the latest edition of the quadrennial European soccer championship, some Spanish fans felt their team had no definite approach, while others lamented that they often played beautifully but ineffectively.

"Spain has always underachieved," says Mr. Carlin. "Spain for years and years and years has played aesthetically well, and often deserved to win on points, but could never deliver the knockout punch."

Spain's victorious run, many commentators believe, finally married the attacking flair with scoreboard success, and this contributed to the puffed-up self-image. The Spanish style of soccer, says Mr. Segurola, features a "high percentage of possession, midfielders with superior technical and creative skills dedicated to an attacking style with fast and nimble forwards." And winning. Suddenly, it seemed, Spain could finally float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

Like many knockout punches, though, this one was the result of a lot of preparation and money. Since the 1980s, the number and quality of training facilities in Spain has greatly increased. This was partly the result of the Plan to Aid Olympic Sport, or ADO Plan, a public-private effort to fund sports, originally initiated for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

The current generation of athletes has also grown up in an increasingly prosperous country with better nutrition and access to excellent sporting facilities. The results can be seen in players who are both taller and fitter than in the past.

The Olympics, in which Spain won 22 medals, also boosted the confidence of the Spanish. "The success of Barcelona '92," says Mr. Segurola, "... changed the perception of the world on Spain and of Spain on itself."

Commentators note as well that the emerging democracy and the end of fascism allowed Spain to come out of its shell. "They feel much more like qualified European citizens of the world," Mr. Carlin says.

Still, though, a unified Spain -- even in sporting terms -- may be a mirage "when athletes or sports teams are neither Catalan nor Basque," says Juan Diez Medrano, a sports fan and sociologist in Barcelona. "Catalan and Basque nationalists remain indifferent or experience the Spanish sport victories as defeat."

At a recent soccer match between Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao in the Basque city of Bilbao, fans booed the national anthem, directly snubbing King Juan Carlos, who was in attendance.

"When England or Italy plays a game, they can feel the whole nation behind them," says Mr. Carlin. "When the Spanish national team plays, they know a significant part of the population wants them to lose."

The politicization of sport may actually explain some of the more passionate rhetoric applied to the Spanish when they play other nations. For some, though, local allegiances are trumped by the beautiful play. Mr. Segurola, a Basque native, says, "It's good for the sport that the best team wins, the team that wants to give the spectator their money's worth, the least introspective.

"That was Spain during Euro 2008. That's Barca this season."

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page D10

[palos]

For all of the flowery rhetoric re: Barca's football....it's essence is DUTCH.

[Filho]

For all of the flowery rhetoric re: Barca's football....it's essence is DUTCH.

def. some dutch influence. but i don't know if i'd go so far as to say it's essence is dutch.

[palos]

For all of the flowery rhetoric re: Barca's football....it's essence is DUTCH.

def. some dutch influence. but i don't know if i'd go so far as to say it's essence is dutch.

Here's an article that gives some insight into the ESSENCE of Barcelona's style of play.


The men who make Barca beautiful    By Jonathan Stevenson 

SOURCE

It is perhaps not surprising that Barcelona's Yaya Toure believes he plays with the two best footballers on earth.
After all, the likes of Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto'o and Thierry Henry have scored an incredible 97 goals between them this season.

But Toure is not talking about Barca's 'Holy Trinity'. He is instead referring to the two men he watches weave their destructive patterns from midfield.

According to Toure, they do not come any better than Xavi and Andres Iniesta - and he tells me twice, just in case I might have misheard him, or worse, not believed him.

606: DEBATE
Can Barcelona beat Man Utd by playing their brand of beautiful football?
BBC Sport's Jonathan Stevenson


"They are the two greatest in the world for me, I cannot speak highly enough of just how good they are," the 26-year-old said.

"They are different players, but equally important to this Barcelona team - don't ask me to choose between them because I couldn't.

"The most important thing at Barca is the kind of football we play, beautiful football, and when Xavi and Iniesta are on the ball everyone's having a good time - both on the pitch and in the stands."

In a nutshell, that is what FC Barcelona is geared towards, and why in Xavi and Iniesta they have two players who carry the philosophy of the football club onto the pitch.

It is a philosophy that was born when Dutch great Johan Cruyff arrived in Catalonia in the 1970s, became a fixture when Cruyff returned as manager in the 1980s and now, thanks to Cruyff's continued involvement in the club, is deeply entrenched.

Football, Barca believe, should be dedicated to free-flowing attacking play - the kind of 'Total Football' that Cruyff and his Dutch colleagues produced in the 1970s to worldwide acclaim.

Xavi and Iniesta have been at Barca since they were 11 and 12 respectively and that message has been drummed into them since the day they arrived.

It's football for the people, and it means so much more when you win playing beautiful football

Barcelona's Yaya Toure
It is a message based around ball retention, about superior technique, about lightning-quick passing and the ability to utilise wide open spaces on the pitch.

"Receive, pass, offer, receive, pass, offer," is how Iniesta recalls his education. Xavi, meanwhile, talks as if his talent is a side issue: "I am a child of the system, a pupil at the Barcelona school of football."

It is a system that has helped produce what many La Liga experts are calling the greatest Spanish team since the Real Madrid of the 1950s, and it is not by chance that this has come about.

Toure, the younger brother of Arsenal defender Kolo, says the focus in training at Barcelona - from the youth teams at La Masia, the club's academy, through to the first team squad - is different to that of any other club.

"Playing great football is a part of this culture, it is what we are here to do," said the former Olympiakos and Monaco star.

"It's just different at Barca. The kids are taught from such a young age about how the ball should move, how to protect the ball at all times, how to never give it away.

XAVI FACTFILE
Name: Xavier Hernandez i Creus
Born: Terrassa, 25 Jan 1980
Barca history: Joined La Masia aged 11, made first-team debut in August 1998
What he says: "Milan offered me a lot of money in 1999. But I wanted to succeed here. I never want to leave"
"At Barcelona the physical aspect has never been the most important thing, the emphasis is always on technique -that's why every footballer wants to play for this team.

"It isn't new, either, it's something that has been happening over a long period of time here. That's why people go to the Camp Nou, why people take their children, their wives - because it's enjoyment for everyone.

"It's football for the people, and it means so much more when you win playing beautiful football."

Barca's dedication to the system, especially through the constant midfield probing of the metronomic Xavi and the indefatigable Iniesta, has paid off magnificently in this remarkable season.

Led by Messi (37 goals), Eto'o (34) and Thierry Henry (26), Barca have scored a record-breaking 156 goals and they have done so with a flair and panache that has had the purists purring.

They have succeeded by attempting to pass teams into submission without ever even contemplating falling back on a Plan B - take the Champions League semi-finals, for instance.

Over two legs against Chelsea, Barcelona attempted a mind-blowing 1,359 passes, with 82.1% of them finding their intended target. Their opponents, in the same 180 minutes, attempted 687 passes, with a success rate of 59.5%.

INIESTA FACTFILE
Name: Andres Iniesta Lujan
Born: Fuentealbilla, 11 May 1984
Barca history: Joined La Masia aged 12, made first-team debut in October 2002
What he says: "I want to stay. When I say I want to retire at Barca, I say it with all my heart"
Xavi himself attempted 226 passes in the two games - roughly one-third of Chelsea's team total - and completed 73.8% as he constantly sought to outwit the English team's seemingly impenetrable defence.

Despite their frustration at going the best part of 180 minutes without scoring, they remained steadfast in their belief that if they kept playing their way, the breakthrough would come.

Arguably they got lucky against Chelsea - and Barca might find it even harder against a Manchester United side who are equally capable at the back but possess a far greater attacking threat - but Pep Guardiola's team will carry on regardless.

In the Champions League this season, Barca's pass completion is 87.2%, way in front of any of their rivals - Manchester United are fifth, with 82.6%.

In in their semi against Arsenal, United attempted 1,102 passes, completing 70.4% but it is a safe bet that Sir Alex Ferguson will not be expecting his team to dominate possession in the Stadio Olimpico, then.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst, who played for Barca between 2003-07 and won the Champions League in 2006, believes Xavi and Iniesta have almost benefited from a kind of telepathy on the pitch.

"They have a special relationship, they always have, they just seem to know where the other one is," Van Bronckhorst told BBC Sport.

"They are two players who have absolutely everything - technique, the ability to score goals, play the killer pass, they are just complete midfielders.

"Watch them and look at how they never lose the ball. They aren't big, but they use their bodies to lose a player, they are so smart in the way they protect that ball like it means everything.

"I think the Barca model is set up to produce players like these two. We used to watch the youth teams training, and there are some unbelievably gifted players down there."

 
Guardiola quickly became aware of Xavi (left) and Iniesta's talents

If Xavi and Iniesta have blossomed even more this season, coach Guardiola, in his first season in charge, must take his share of the credit.

For Guardiola is from the same stock. He arrived at Barca when he was 11, became captain of Cruyff's 'Dream Team' side that won four successive La Liga titles from 1991 to 1994 and secured the club's first European Cup in 1992.

Before he left Barca as a player in 2001, he had already spotted the duo's potential. During Iniesta's first training session with the first-team, he pulled Xavi to one side and told him: "You're going to retire me - but this kid's going to retire us all."

It is Guardiola's ultimate faith in Xavi and Iniesta's ability that has given the manager the freedom he needed to commit his team unequivocally to the methods he learned under Cruyff.

"They are the heart of this team - this team that is on the verge of winning absolutely everything," added Van Bronckhorst.

"Their importance to Barcelona must not be underestimated because they are the ones who start all the moves and then play any pass required by the three up front.

"If you see how this team plays, you know that is how football is meant to be."

Ferguson is an unabashed admirer too. After Barca's staggering 6-2 win at arch-rivals Real Madrid last month, he called it an "absolutely magnificent performance, a battering".

He is also aware of the threat Barca's deadly duo pose to his side's chances of winning club football's showpiece competition for a fourth time.

"I don't think Xavi and Iniesta have ever given the ball away in their lives," said the Scot.

"They get you on that carousel and they can leave you dizzy."

Ferguson will hope his head is not spinning after yet another masterclass of the beautiful game from Barcelona's midfield maestros.

Whisper it quietly, but Toure even believes his team-mates might one day be mentioned in the same breath as some of the greats of the game.

"Xavi is special, it is an amazing thing for us to be able to rely on a player like him, who was named the best player at Euro 2008," he said.

"As for Iniesta - he is the Zinedine Zidane of the team, because he can do whatever you want him to with the ball.

"They are just two great footballers playing great football."
 

[freakazoid]

nice read

[Deeks]

Nice article. But every country does go thru the period of Apex and  flux. Spain is at the summit at the moment. I remenber whe the West Germans was the top in football and East germany was the top in athletic( well, with plenty asistance). France had their little period. The russian had theirs. It goes in cycles.

[Filho]

palos. in many ways I agree with the article and like I said, in a way I agree with you and I am well aware of Barca's history. I think Rinus Michels and not Cruyff is the one who started the Dutch influence on Barca, and he more than anyone, exported Total Football to the Catalans. Cruyff's Barca never really played Total Football. The writer here, like many, mistakenly assume that if a team has a Dutch coach and/or Dutch players and plays attacking, attractive football, they are playing Total Football. It's not always true. Barca's style of play has some Dutch DNA, no doubt, but Barca has a lot of other influences and their philosophy is as much born off the pitch as it is on it. I really believe that Cruyff or no Cruyff, Barca would play a very similar style to what you see today. Look around La Liga...even the teams at the foot of the table try to play beautiful attacking football. But lewwe doh argue..the Dutch masters left their mark as well.