By the time Barcelona fans read about their side's magical performance against Espanyol in Monday morning's newspapers, Lionel Messi was already back home in Argentina.
Messi had a private jet waiting to join his family for a break in the South American summer. He, and several of Barca’s big name players, will be absent when they take on third tier Hercules in the Copa del Rey last 32 stage at Camp Nou on Wednesday night. The tournament is taken seriously by Spanish clubs, but Barca’s B team top the division in which Hercules sit fourth and a fringe XI should really overcome the Alicante side at home, even though they held Barca 1-1 in the first leg.
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Messi will appreciate his rest before he returns to his beachside home in Spain ahead of Barca’s next league game at Villarreal on January 8th. That’s a significant 20-day break.
By his own stellar standards, Messi’s had better years than 2016. Barca won the league but Real Madrid took the Champions League. Messi also retired from international football after losing out in another major final with Argentina, only to reverse his decision.
Messi, 29, still managed 51 goals for his club and 25 assists, a far better rate than Cristiano Ronaldo’s 42 and 14. And a far better rate than any player in Europe’s top five leagues. On Sunday against neighbours Espanyol, a team he has a voracious appetite for pummelling, Messi was at his best.
It’s about time. Barca have been misfiring lately, with three consecutive league draws before last week’s win at doomed Osasuna, but one player has made all the difference: Andres Iniesta.
Barca’s playmaker makes Messi a better player, he sets him up, plays him into space and sees things before anyone else on the field. Both have the ability to go past an opponent, to score, to win the biggest matches. The Catalan side’s confidence is higher when Iniesta plays and all the players appreciate him for how he helps dominate and provide the routine statistics of Barca swamping their foes with possession. No player touched the ball as much as Iniesta in the Catalan derby, but while Iniesta supplies the bullets for the front three; it’s the strikers who take the headlines.
Monday's Marca featured a double page cover to celebrate Real Madrid becoming world champions, but Madrid's greatest cheerleader still found space for a "Return of the Magic" headline and the accompanying strapline: "the return of the Iniesta-Messi axis decides the derby".
Messi was sensational on Sunday night in front of 80,000. Under Quique Sanchez Flores, Espanyol are no pushovers. They’d kept seven clean sheets in their previous nine games. With Madrid six points ahead of Barca, they couldn’t slip up. They didn’t.
Messi took until the 90th minute to score, but he was better than any other player on the pitch, even Iniesta, as his side produced their best performance of the season so far, a performance only soured by Sergio Busquets gouging opponent David Lopez, something he got away with.
Sanchez Flores went straight to Messi on the pitch after the game, congratulating him on his humility.
“They pull him down, they kick him, and he doesn’t complain,” the Espanyol manager said, compliments which Espanyol fans didn’t appreciate. “It’s amazing. He and Iniesta bring beauty to football.”
Madrid are the team of the moment, but wind back two years. Madrid were league leaders and had just been crowned world champions. They were on top of the world, yet their success – and Ronaldo’s success – motivates Barca and Messi. Within five months Barca were Spanish and European champions.
“We’re in a good rhythm and we’ll fight until the end of the season,” said Luis Enrique. With Messi and Iniesta at his disposal, he’ll feel much more confident.
Iberian invincibility
Real Madrid left Tokyo on Sunday night after being crowned world champions for a record fifth time, with Cristiano Ronaldo, the world's best player in 2016, scoring a hat-trick as his side came from behind to beat Kashima Antlers 4-2. Karim Benzema was excellent, Lucas Vasquez too.
Unbeaten in 40 games, their manager Zinedine Zidane became the first person to be crowned world champion as a player and a coach, having won more trophies than he’s lost games as coach. The Whites have much to feel confident about going into 2017.
Their win underlined the dominance of Spanish clubs in world football, who’ve won the last three world titles, the last three Champions Leagues, the last three Europa leagues, while teams from Spain have won the last eight Ballon d’Ors and currently boast the top six players in the world.
Three years ago, this writer spoke to Manchester United's leading executive Ed Woodward who said: "I don't like the fact that in the list of 25 players in the Ballon d'Or, we'll have Robin (van Persie) and Wayne (Rooney). I don't like the fact that there are consistently more players from Spain on that list. We as a club should be aspiring to have the best players playing for us. We've had that in the past."
Three years on and little has changed. United may have broken the world transfer record to sign Paul Pogba, but Spanish clubs continue to dominate international competition.
The current United manager Jose Mourinho, who has worked at Barcelona and Real Madrid, thinks that teams who play in Continental Europe have a distinct advantage over English teams who have no winter break.
“The teams which go to the knockout phases in Europe are in a better condition to go again,” he said. Mourinho has a solution. “I also think that FA Cup replays should end, which they’re doing this season for the quarter-final, and I would try to find a solution where the teams who play in Europe join the domestic cups at a later stage. To play everything at the same time without a winter break is too much.”
He also advocates a break after England’s traditional festive run of fixtures, yet there are no plans to introduce one. This, Mourinho believes, will be to the detriment of the chances of English clubs in Europe. He also thinks that the English Premier League is more sapping and more in need of a break, with higher levels of competition, whereas in Spain the big two can steamroller smaller opponents.
Real Madrid’s players, like those of all the top Spanish clubs, will break and return refreshed.
They’ll experience sunshine and more family time, then they’ll return to continue their Iberian dominance.
Player of the week
Doubts surrounded the summer transfer of the once-venerated Brazilian Alexandre Pato to Villarreal. Could he reproduce his form of yore? And stay injury free? He’s showing signs and was the stand out player as fourth-placed Villlareal beat Sporting Gijon away at the weekend, scoring the third goal in a 3-1 win. Bruno and Alvaro were also outstanding for Villarreal.
Game of the week
There’s a three-week break from league action before Barcelona play at Villarreal in the most interesting game of 2017’s opening weekend. The Copa del Rey fixtures this week pit the giants against the minnows and with the bigger clubs at home in the second leg, there’s little chance of any upsets. What chance did Guijuelo, a third division team, have in the Calderon against Atletico when they lost the first leg 0-6?
What else?
• Sevilla briefly moved up to second after beating Andalusian neighbours Malaga 4-1 at home. No team has picked up as many points as Sevilla at home, no team have scored more goals. They'll have the distraction of the Champions League and two games against Leicester City in February and March, but as they've shown in recent years, they're more than adapt at juggling domestic competition with European success. Once again, their two Vs' – Luciano Vietto and Vitolo, were their stand out players.
• Real Sociedad won again, this time at lowly Granada. La Real are the top Basque side, ahead of Eibar in seventh and Athletic Bilbao in eighth. It’s a good time for Basque football. Osasuna, who play in Navarra but are considered Basque by many of their fans, are not faring quite so well and remain bottom.
• Though on the losing side in Monday’s defeat against Athletic Bilbao at San Mames, Celta Vigo’s Iago Aspas has scored in his last nine Primera Liga matches. The Galicians are out of form, however, and need to get back up the table.
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