BARCELONA, SPAIN – Never knowingly beaten, Lionel Messi continues to improve with age.
The script had been written for his 200th league appearance for Barcelona on home soil to end in underwhelm. Cue the Argentine, stage right, to deliver a late free-kick which helped Ernesto Valverde’s side belatedly see off Deportivo Alaves in a 2-1 win on Sunday.
Many victims had fallen prey in the prelude to Messi’s latest milestone but Alaves were previously one of three sides to have suffered the ignominy of contributing to his erstwhile 211-goal haul at the Nou Camp just once. That all changed with one sweep of his left foot.
Cristiano Ronaldo had to embark on a relentless pursuit of self-improvement in order to reach football’s pinnacle; Messi has been there from the outset on natural ability alone.
Accusations that Barca remain excessively reliant on the five-time Ballon d’Or winner have become an adjective in its own right – ‘Messidepedencia’. A 20th goal of the campaign did little to silence them, not that a team who consolidated their 11-point advantage in La Liga will care anyway.
No team across Europe’s top five leagues has been able to better Barcelona’s current unbeaten record of 28 league games while they have now also equaled their own longest continuous start to a season, previously set by Pep Guardiola in 2009-10. Extending their gulf over Real Madrid to 19 points merely served as another feather in the cap.
Not so long ago, however, it was the champions-elect who faced a seismic fall from grace.
FC Barcelona’s Luis Suarez (L) celebrates with teammates Andres Iniesta (C) and Paulinho (R) after scoring a goal against Deportivo Alaves. (Toni Albir/EPA)
Inspired by Ronaldo, Los Blancos had stunned the Nou Camp last August en route to a 5-1 aggregate win in the Supercopa de Espana. The writing appeared to be on the wall for a club seemingly incapable of attracting supreme talent as they were retaining them and being ravaged by an internal battle at boardroom level to engender change.
Few would have envisaged that the reigning European champions would be the ones now mired in crisis; only fractionally closer to La Liga’s summit than its relegation zone.
Tempting though it may have been to deviate from a footballing DNA harvested by Johan Cruyff during that period of uncertainty, Barcelona are reaping the rewards for continuity, wth Valverde now cast in superiority while Zinedine Zidane battles to salvage a once rising stock.
He had represented a gamble, as was the case with Luis Enrique, his predecessor; both had seldom excelled in management but their playing history was a key selling point. Like Enrique, Valverde now appears destined to succeed where only Gerardo Martino had failed in past decade by lifting major silverware in his first campaign as Barcelona manager.
Adding Philippe Coutinho to the current mix will only help accelerate their ascent. Leaving Liverpool was a necessary evil for the Brazilian, as evidenced by his former club crashing out of the FA Cup in a shock defeat to West Bromwich Albion just 24 hours prior. Others previously abandoned Anfield to follow a pursuit of happiness and major honours in Catalonia, as Luis Suarez himself and a newly-departed Javier Mascherano can attest.
His first start for Barca showed glimpses of the outlay in excess of £100 million to take him from Merseyside. Both industrious and able to execute neat passes, he embarked on a learning curve of sorts as Andres Iniesta’s eventual heir; floating between the elder statesman’s midfield domicile and a more attacking role on the right-hand side of the hosts’ attack to mixed effect.
“They are not machines who can just go into a new factory and start to work immediately,” Valverde admitted post-match.
“But I saw him doing well, involved in the play, wanting the ball. It’s another step. The other day [against Espanyol] he played 20 minutes and now a bit more.
“We will see him go in bit by bit.”
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Valvede’s greatest accomplishment lies in his continued ability to tighten a team which had become defensively lapse in their final season under his predecessor. Sensing Alaves’ growing confidence as they held a one-goal lead early in the second half, he made bold yet influential changes as he replaced full-backs Lucas Digne and Nelson Semedo, with Sergi Roberto’s introduction proving a pivotal factor at the other end of the field.
There will be sterner challenges than a side sitting just two points clear of safety in the table. Next month, Valencia are unlikely to surrender as willfully in their Copa del Rey semi-final as they did at the same stage of the competition two years prior, while a Champions League meeting with a Chelsea side at odds with itself offers no guarantees of Barcelona’s smooth passage into the last 16.
Both Enrique and Guardiola lifted trebles in their first seasons in charge, feats which eventually elevated them alongside Cruyff as Barca’s most successful managers. If Valverde follows in their footsteps, some extra space will be required on that pantheon.
Richard Buxton is a UK-based writer and special correspondent for Sportsnet. He filed this report from Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium.
