Without Lionel Messi, the walls are too high and too strong for Barça
Lluis Mascaro feels Barça simply are not the same team without the Argentine in their ranks
A Barça without Messi was thwarted by Malaga’s ultra-defensive wall and an immense goalkeeping performance from Carlos Kameni. That would be the quickest way to sum up the Blaugrana’s slip up at Camp Nou. But it would be too trivial to do so. Because this Barça has a deeper problem: a total lack of resources when they’re without their stars.
And on Saturday they were missing too many. To start, Lionel Messi, who due to a virus couldn’t even be called up. Another important absentee continues to be Andres Iniesta. Without him, the team loses a lot of control. And if we throw in the absence of of an irreplaceable goalscorer in the form of Luis Suarez, we can begin to understand the enormous problems Barça had when it came to breaking down Juande Ramos’ side. And Malaga played the last 20 minutes with 10 men and ended the game with nine… although Kameni saved the point with some incredible stops.
It’s true that we’ve seen many games like the one on Saturday. Against a rival totally closing off their area in search of a goalless raw. It’s a dangerous tactic, because Barcelona usually end up scoring. Because they have a genius called Messi who’s capable of breaking down even the tallest, strongest walls. But Barça became a mediocre team here, unable of beating Kameni.
Paco Alcacer was completely negated as an attacking option to the point that Gerard Pique ended up doing his job, once again getting forward and creating problems, pure Alexanko style. It was desperate, though, and Malaga achieved the objective they set out with from the start. Two more points lost. And now 10 dropped since the start of the season. Too many.
