With 26 wins from their last 28 games, Barcelona’s recent run of results has been superior to anything they achieved during Pep Guardiola’s four-year reign as manager.
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Lionel Messi is playing better than ever, while Luis Suarez and Neymar are also amply contributing to a sensational strike force which has already surpassed 100 goals for the season.
At the other end, Barca have tightened-up considerably at the back, conceding just four goals in the last 12 games. They’re even scoring from setpieces – Gerard Pique’s seven goals are more than any Barca defender for two decades.
Taking all that into account, is it time to whisper the suggestion that Barca’s current crop could prove to be just as good as – or even better than – Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering vintage of 2008-2012?
There is a long way to go, of course. As Luis Enrique acknowledged yesterday, it is quite feasible that Barca’s current hunt for three trophies will end with nothing.
Bayern Munich followed by Juventus or Real Madrid is no straightforward matter in the Champions League, while failure to win at Atletico Madrid a week on Sunday would probably see Real come out on top in La Liga.
And if Barca’s season does descend into disappointment, Athletic Bilbao could prove capable of wrecking their Copa del Rey dreams as well. So nothing can be taken for granted yet, and no conclusions about the quality of Enrique’s Barca will be reached until the silverware is on the table.
However, his team’s recent performances could hardly be more promising; 26 wins in 28 games, at a crucial time of the season, really is extraordinarily impressive.
The last time FC Barcelona played a match on May 6, it was 2009 and ‘this’ happened; pic.twitter.com/62Qw6H7jQE
— 8 Fact Football (@8Fact_Footballl) May 5, 2015
And they haven’t been easy games, either, with the victims including European champions Real Madrid, Spanish champions Atletico (three times), French champions Paris Saint-Germain (twice) and English champions Manchester City (twice).
We could well be witnessing the start of something very special and, in the fullness of time, football’s chroniclers may regard Enrique’s Barcelona of 2015 as just as good as Guardiola’s Barcelona of 2011.
What they won’t do, however, is apply the same label of greatness to the current team. The distinction comes from the fact that, whatever Enrique’s team goes on to achieve, they are not breaking any moulds or shattering any preconceptions.
This season’s Barca have been exhilarating to watch, especially the interplay between Messi, Suarez and Neymar. But there is nothing unusual about the team’s style of play – nothing that hasn’t been attempted many times before.
With Guardiola’s team, it was different. They were different – employing tactics that had never previously been witnessed at the highest level – and they were extremely influential.
The roots of the system were in the Dutch football handed down by Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff, with the emphasis on ball retention and high pressing. But Guardiola took that approach to another level, with his masterstroke of repositioning Messi as a ‘false nine’ providing an additional innovation which has since been much copied but never bettered.
Not only did Barca win everything under Guardiola, they also innovated and changed the way the world understands football. They were genuine game-changers. Whatever the current team achieves, they won’t match that.
