It remains a phenomenon peculiar to the Spanish league, but its two most renowned clubs, Barcelona and Real Madrid seem ever intent on maintaining a yin-yang relationship. When one of them is yinning, the other is yanning, if you get the picture. Not being an expert on Chinese philosophy, however, I wouldn’t want to give the impression that the two clubs are forever engaged in a theatre of opposites – dark and light, happy and sad, chalk and cheese etc – but rather that they seem to feed off each other’s vibe, taking strength from the other’s weakness at any point of the week, month or year. Like adjacent lifts, one goes up as the other goes down. It’s weird and it’s consistent, so much so that it seems to have been going on since the early 1950s, the first real period when the two clubs rose to prominence as a duopoly. They didn’t like each other very much before then, but they weren’t necessarily the top two. Now that they are, it doesn’t matter whether one is top and the other is second – one of them will be undergoing some sort of downhill crisis whilst the other skips merrily uphill through the butterflies and the daisies.
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If you’ve been here in Spain long enough, you know that either of these directions will inevitably change. Sometimes a run can last for a substantial period, as when the Pep Team rubbed Real Madrid’s noses into the dirt for an unbroken period of three years, casting a shimmering light on their own image and consigning Real Madrid to the shadows of second place. Madrid, of course, have enjoyed similar periods of hegemony, but both clubs are so potentially powerful and stocked with so much financial and cultural collateral that it is almost impossible to ever see them going down in the lift and never coming back up. The beauty of this particular pendulum swing is that supporters and press alike fantasise that this time – this time at last, the power will stay with them and the other will remain forever dung. It’s a Spanish thing – a romantic and idealistic tendency to ignore the facts and to go with the passion, and it’s happening again in this 2014-2015 season.
Barcelona are now playing wonderfully, and have not looked back since the defeat to Real Sociedad at Anoeta in early January that provoked both an institutional and sporting crisis at the club, with the sacking of the director of football, Leo Messi missing training and apparently contemplating a change of scene, and Luis Enrique a certainty to be axed. Real Madrid also lost that weekend, at Valencia, and seemed to be suffering the effects that a break can have when you’re on a good run – but there was no particular indication at that point that the season was about to change direction.
Barcelona beat Atlético Madrid 3-1 the following week in a crucial game, and have won every match since, scoring 26 times in 6 league games. The clubs’ two icons, whose form and moods are symbolic of whether they’re in the yin or the yang, have also exchanged roles – Cristiano Ronaldo booed (albeit timidly) by the Bernabéu this weekend at the beginning of the game against Deportivo, and Messi scoring another hat-trick (against poor Levante) to further consolidate his startling return to form. What causes all these vicissitudes, these ups and downs? Well – players are only human. Ronaldo has broken up with his girlfriend, and was on such a crest of form before Christmas that it could only dip. Messi was brooding and sulky, allegedly because he didn’t like Luis Enrique, but now he’s back on cloud nine, is closing on Ronaldo in the league scoring stakes (two behind), and for Barcelona it suddenly looks like this could be a fruitful season after all.
Barcelona will take further pleasure from the fact that there are now three different Android apps for mobile phones which enable the bearer to gauge the level of decibels in the surrounding area. In a particularly perverse piece of journalism, the tabloid Marca sent one of its reporters to the Bernabeu to record the decibel levels of booing or applause that accompanied the squad announcements during the warm-up. The fallen Saint Iker Casillas scored a high of 110.6 decibels (boos and whistles), generating more noise than the 109.2 (cheers) that accompanied Isco’s excellent opening goal. Carlo Ancelotti scored 102 decibels (boos and whistles) whilst Ronaldo managed a decent 95 (boos and whistles) – the former because of the resounding walloping received last week in the Calderon and the latter because of his body language during that same game and the leaked images of his birthday party the same night – a quiet affair of course, enjoyed with his mum, his dad and his pet Labrador.
Barcelona’s own recovery, nevertheless, remains inversely proportionate to their off-the-field affairs, with president Josep Maria Bartomeu summonsed to declare over the infamous Neymar case, in which the club is accused of tax-evasion with regard to a Dh12.5m (€3m) shortfall in the amounts that should have been paid to the authorities when the Brazilian was originally signed. In a classic piece of Catalan-Tarantino drama, where the bad guys (or gals) all end up holding a gun to each others’ heads, Bartomeu declared himself innocent of all charges and Sandro Rosell, his former boss, was cited as the architect responsible for the signing of Neymar and therefore the man that they should be pursuing. At least it gives Madrid renewed hope that the apparent rise in Barcelona’s fortunes could soon go into reverse gear, if the affair drags on. Xavi Hernandez remarked on Friday, when asked about the issue, that the players were all “tired of the Neymar thing”, but he wasn’t accusing his team-mate of any culpability.
Quite the opposite. Neymar continues to look like the real thing, after his lukewarm initial season. Like Thierry Henry before him, Neymar appears to have only a couple of tricks and a burst of speed in his repertoire, but is nevertheless almost impossible to stop when he’s in the mood. He’s given Barcelona extra verticality, extra unpredictability. He’s also building up a frightening understanding with Messi, diving much less than before, and working harder for the general cause. It’s unclear why he is playing so much better, but the system of 4-3-3, in which the front three all act as ‘false’ strikers and are given licence to roam at will, switch flanks or just lurk between the lines, seems to suit him better than being constantly out on the flanks. It may also be simply the result of better acquaintance with any of the other two players who happen to form the front three, but particularly with Messi. It’s interesting, because up to now in his career, Messi has associated with everyone equally, but with none in particular – as if he never really saw the need. Now he seems to be enjoying the novelty of playing alongside a kindred spirit, of building up a sort of telepathy with him. It’s what everyone feared the most when Neymar was signed. Now, as Andres Iniesta’s influence wanes, Neymar has stepped up onto the podium.
Even Neymar’s shanked finishes look awesome https://t.co/tH3j7W8rsp #FCBlive
— SOCCER.COM (@soccerdotcom) February 15, 2015
Barcelona, probably recalling last season’s 7-0 romp in the Camp Nou and this season’s easy 5-0 win when they visited Levante in September, decided to start with Marc Bartra, Martin Montoya and Adriano in defence, just to give them a bit of practice. Of the three La Liga representatives in the Champions League, only Real Madrid play this week – travelling to Schalke where they had a rather happy time last season, winning by the startling margin of 6-1. Atlético, surprise losers at Celta on Sunday night, have an extra week to prepare themselves for the trip to Bayer Leverkusen. ‘Surprise losers’ maybe overlooks the fact that Celta were improving and both Arda and Koke were out, but the 2-0 reverse leaves them seven points adrift of their Madrid neighbours now. A continued run in the Champions League would be a good morale booster because in the next three weeks they face both Sevilla and Valencia in the league. To return to the theme of the article, they won’t want their yin to turn into yang just yet.
