In the year before the next World Cup, the European game, as reflected in its domestic as well as intra-continental versions, is in a state of flux. It isn’t quite like an Oscars run-up in a bumper-crop year; it’s more as if we’re all asking each other who’ll walk the talk.
The other day, the headlines said Messi had blown a penalty, the photos showed a smiling Neymar holding the Spanish Super Cup and the printed text reported another Barcelona success. Not a very great one, though. Atletico Madrid hadn’t lost in the traditional sense: 1-1 and 0-0 results over two legs later, Barca put their hands on the trophy in accordance with the modern, away-goal rule. Utilitarian, but not authentic. And, at the Camp Nou, they’d barely looked the part even though Atletico Madrid had been down to 10 players, with Barca goalkeeper Victor Valdes holding them off. Well, mostly. Messi’s mistake had come in the 89th minute – and he’s hardly the first iconic, pin-up character in the game to have thus foozled it – but, hours after the match, no one was asking anyone else what Neymar, the big noise of the moment whose Santos-to-Barca move had been such a crackerjack thing, had done before or after it.
The Brazilian’s continued honeymoon with the Press suggested apprehensions, attendant upon calling a spade a spade, of diminished hospitality during next year’s World Cup in his country, but, jokes apart, none of it was about a Barca getting ready for Europe, where they’d been left spreadeagled in extremely humiliating, mind-numbing circumstances in the previous Champions League.
The wounds might have been licked a long while ago, but being there with the return punch didn’t seem their immediate objective, with new coach Gerardo Martino saying that, when it came to a final, winning it was what mattered. The surprise was it was meant for Catalan ears. That hadn’t been Barca’s philosophy in recent years, when they’d sat in the top seat of global club football, with their tiki taka style evoking –justly, of course – worldwide praise, and, over in Prague, ahead of the UEFA Super Cup, it turned out to be a pretty serviceable stick to beat Jose Mourinho – whose Chelsea team were to go up against Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich – with. It must have been a hilarious occasion. The former Real Madrid coach, told he’d only thrice beaten the former Barca manager in 15 meetings, said that was wrong statistics. Rebounding, he said: “Maybe you’re right and I’m wrong but I don’t care. This is not about Pep and me, it’s about Chelsea and Bayern.” And then they asked him about the contrast between Barca’s now-in-the-past art football and his Real Madrid outfit’s prosaic, restrictive and unimaginative approach. “If you want to ask questions about Chelsea I’m here,” the putatively cool one in the unimpeachable lounge suit replied tetchily, adding: “If you want to ask questions about Real or Barcelona then I’m not here.”
What, though, he got absolutely right was his evaluation of Bayern, who, he said, had been Europe’s best under Jupp Heynckes, whose sign-off season’s successes had been nothing short of spectacular. Guardiola made all the right noises – about him being a young trainer who was willing to learn from all the coaches in the world – but the Bayern he was now managing didn’t seem half the menacing, overpowering, and steamrolling team they’d been in Heynckes’ last year. Miracles apart, none of these coaches will be in charge of any World Cup teams a year from now, but when you consider how so many sideshows – basically, the high-profile transfers, the anticipations surrounding these and the disappointments they leave in their wake – have been allowed to eclipse the game, national federations seem as much on top of their game as country cousins at a metropolitan wedding. Or, commuters during a railroad strike. It’s the price they’ve paid for colluding with the agents of commercialisation.
When the European Cup morphed into the Champions League, the scene was set up for this. If Europe gets up on its feet yet – admittedly, the Confederations Cup was hardly a true index – it will be due entirely to its players, whichever countries they might represent. South America will surely lick its chops, but whether it’s capable any more of a stylistic difference is a question which only the tournament, as it unfolds, can answer. Brazil, even in winning the Confederations Cup, indicated precious little, given that the game’s tell-tale safety first European element characterised them too. And, regardless of mediocre punditry, it’s long been so.
