Carrick-Fit

Carrick: Strictly NOT a box-to-box midfielder, since 1999.

If one was asked to compile a list of European football’s most successful passers at present, the king of the metrognomes at Barcelona would surely top most of those compilations. Behind Xavi, who next then? Sergio Busquets and Andres Iniesta surely wouldn’t be too far behind. Maybe Xabi Alonso? The ageing magician Andre Pirlo, too; surely he’d make an appearance. But let’s look closer to home.

Passing In The Wind

Andres Iniesta's cameo performance in The Illusionist

Throwing the decent journalism rulebook out of the window (because when has that ever encumbered any of Magic Spongers’ output over the past two-and-a-half years?), we’ll begin with a question. Is passing a tactic? We’ll seek to answer this in the next few paragraphs, but let’s continue with a second question. Is pressing a tactic? We ask because passing and pressing were up there in the dominant themes section of Jonathan Wilson’s ‘The Football Tactical Trends of 2012’ article in the Guardian.

War and Pearce

The results are in. The Root and Branch is officially over and luckily for Magic Spongers, it has achieved absolutely fuck all. Stuart Pearce gave us a glimpse into the future of English football at the very top level on Sunday. And it is marvellous, we have to say. "When you have reached pass number five, punt it long. You will then not see the ball for two minutes. In this time, show passion and pride; the Bulldog Spirit if you will. Get ball back. Repeat".

The Barcelona way of playing is, of course, impossible to replicate. That's why Juan Mata and Javi Martinez, of Valencia and Athletic Bilbao respectively, looked so much like their English counterpa... oh.

Euro Revision #3: Manchester United v Barcelona 1994

Lee Sharpe receives his first England cap. A proud day.

Over to Magic Spongers' very own Rob MacDonald...

Manchester United 2-2 Barcelona: Champions League Group Stages, October 19 1994

When I was very young, I was in Cub Scouts and we got to a Cup Final. 4th Wilmslow v 1st Lindow I think it was. As a boy it was a confusing time – why was this game different? How would I feel if we lost? How would I feel if we won? What the fuck are those numbers for? (To this day I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of 2nd or 3rd Wilmslow, though I remember 1st, 4th, 5th AND 6th. Did 2nd or 3rd Wilmslow even exist? What? Why not?).

FC Barcelona. Not Arrogant. Just Quite Arrogant

"ARGH! How dare you twat my ideological superiority?"

Sid Lowe’s interview with Xavi earlier this year got us thinking, and not only because the outpouring of emotion on Twitter made us wonder if Sid had died (at the very least mind you, his back must be black and blue after all the slaps it received). In fact, it was that for all Xavi’s joyful enthusiasm, there was a sneaking hint of something else. A creeping sense that the line between admitting the clear fact that Barcelona are superb, and then being all arrogant and self-righteous about it, was getting a bit blurry.

El Clasi-coach

Amid the almost plaintive geeing up from the stands at White Hart Lane, Real Madrid fans at one end of the ground could be heard bellowing Jose Mourinho’s name. Forget that 5-0 humbling, forget the eight point gap at the top of the league. Forget that Mourinho’s proud unbeaten record at home (nine years incorporating 150 matches) was demolished by a team currently 11th in La Liga. Forget that four clasicos now await us in the space of 18 days. Madrid fans now believe that a team so comprehensively battered by Barcelona can become its superior in Europe.

This is unquestionably Mourinho’s favourite time of the year. This is also his favourite way of operating. While we all get carried away with the prospect of seeing four matches involving Spain’s top pair, the likelihood is that the Portuguese will see only two.

Podcast Episode One: Gennaro Gatusso's Lollipop

Apples and onions

Literally Corner... LIVE

A Gennaro Gatusso role play in which Rob impersonates a lady (poorly). It can only be our attempt at a podcast. Click this beautiful Caravaggio to listen.

Another Fine Messi

Overratedness and its bedfellow hype are everywhere in football. Their prevalence makes finding their antonym very satisfying. Whisper it, but Lionel Messi might just be a tad underrated. Bear with me.

We are bombarded by images, from billboards and Sky Sports to You Tube via Facebook and back. It is this infiltration of the everyday by the image, maximised by the omnipotent presence of the internet, that takes away the most romantic notion of mystery. What was once mystery then takes the form of myth. Cardiff City fans telling you Robin Friday was the best player they ever saw (and you never saw). The delicious and possibly apocryphal anecdote from Roker Park, May 9 1973, centring on Stan Bowles being egged on by his teammates to knock the FA Cup off a trestle table by the side of the pitch, triggering chaos on Wearside. Alfredo Di Stefano amusing his Real Madrid teammates by juggling a bar of soap in the changing room.

Hleb Today, Gone Tomorrow

It’s been a difficult couple of years for Alexander Hleb. Just 36 appearances (most as a sub), no goals and a season on loan at Stuttgart indicate that all has not gone to plan for the Belarusian at the Camp Nou since July 2008. It’s a dramatic fall from form and first-choice status at the Emirates. What happened?

Foot And Mouth

Sometimes, in certain situations, with certain people, you just have to sit back, take your hat off and admire. I caught myself doing exactly that today when I read Jose Mourinho’s comments in the build up to tonight’s Champions League clash at the Nou Camp. He’s at it again. Every word that passes this man’s lips are studied. Here’s a snippet from the professional flame fanner: "It is not a dream for Barca, it is obsession. The obsession is reaching the final in Madrid. It's one thing to follow a dream, it's another to have an obsession. For Barca it is an obsession.” Mourinho knows full well that he throwing cats among pigeons with such a comment. He has made a career out of it. That and being a bloody good manager. And then he reaches for another bag of cats: "The only thing I told my players was that I wanted them to support the work of the referee and if the Barcelona players want to do the same, it will be easy for the referee." Classic Jose. A clear dig at the perceived theatrics of the Barca players designed not only to infuriate them but to sow the slightest seed of doubt in the referee’s mind. And off he goes, pigeons everywhere, knowing his work is done.

Meanwhile, one man uncharacteristically not in English headlines this week has been the maestro, Lionel Messi. Another man whose unique skills deserve to be admired. Whereas Mourinho seeks to dominate proceedings off the pitch, it is the Argentine whom, along with Xavi, is the one most likely to carve open even the most obstinate Inter defence. They will be marked men of course, and in the form of Lucio, Walter Samuel and Esteban Cambiasso, their task may well prove thankless once more. But remembering the build up to the Arsenal game, the one in which Messi left all and sundry with jaws dropped down to their feet, the mercurial one was hardly mentioned. Four goals later and he was being revered as a talent to compare with Maradona. Again, I speak in English terms here. In Spain, they already knew the boy’s worth. But it is a very English phenomenon to only entertain thoughts of a player’s greatness if they pull a big performance out against Premier League opposition.

Back to tonight, and in essence, we see a tête-à-tête between Mourinho and Messi to determine who is to be the most revered come the season’s end. It is Mourinho’s great skill that he consistently manages to be more talked about than his players. This is a product of his vanity but at the same time a product of his canniness to appreciate that with the heat on him, his charges can bask in relative obscurity and therefore operate in a less tense atmosphere. If he wins the European Cup this year with Inter, Mourinho will join such illustrious company as Sir Alex Ferguson, Brian Clough and Arrigo Sacchi, to have won it twice.

Messi, on the other hand, has the perfect platform to prove his greatness credentials against Inter. At 3-1 down, against a side so well-drilled, he will have his work cut out. He will have to create space against a side that doesn’t give any. He will be kicked. His shirt will be pulled. But a Messi-inspired Barca win, taking them back the final, would go a long way to silencing any detractors there may be out there to his claims to greatness. Of course, there are plenty of others who could have a say in tonight’s events, but you just get the feeling that the battle will come down to a straight fight between two of the season’s irresistible forces: one man’s mouth against another’s twinkling feet. Adam Bushby

Volcanic Ash Nearly Out Of Europe

Elite footballers and comfort zones aren’t often separated. But then, huge volcanoes in Iceland don’t normally erupt and ground the continent’s air traffic for a week. As evidenced by the embarrassing media circus that followed Liverpool, Fulham, Barcelona and, to a lesser extent, Lyon around Europe this week tweeting about whether or not they were getting enough sleep, the clubs’ preparations for significant European fixtures were somewhat out of the ordinary.

The whole thing was a bit like a student challenge. You have to get hundreds of miles across Europe, but you can’t use planes. Liverpool, you must travel 1,200 miles, Lyon 700 miles, Fulham 600 and Barcelona 450. You can use coaches and trains, even where it would be quicker to walk (the 0.8 miles from Euston to Kings Cross, LIVERPOOL), because, lest we forget, you are not students but elite footballers. HEY – Liverpool. Get off that plane in Bordeaux. That’s not in the rules. GET OFF.

Fine, I hope you lose.

Elite footballers, as the press reminded those who dared to suggest that sitting on a coach for two days could hamper performance levels, remain professional. And remain professional they did, but still, no team that travelled in Europe this week won a game. Only one of them scored in the 360 minutes of football played.

Now, it’s not exclusively the fault of volcanic ash, but the disruption didn’t help. Admittedly, Barcelona were undone by Mourinho’s Inter in ways we pointed out on Wednesday. Fulham actually got a really good result, even if by all accounts they essentially parked the bus they arrived on in front of goal after losing Zamora. But Liverpool… well, sometimes it looks as if crossing the halfway line is a journey too far for a result, let alone going all the way to Madrid, let alone doing so on a coach. Still, they only lost 1-0. Lyon, while also only losing by an odd goal, failed to score against 10 men – in fact Bayern dominated throughout – and conceded when they were a player up on the hosts. There were definitely some weary performances.

In fixtures where the second leg is far more important – so much so that ludicrously, the six UEFA Cup/Europa League semi-final first leg games over the past three seasons have produced a total of only six goals – perhaps analysing the result is a bit futile. It’s only half time, after all. You would still back all four who were on the road this week to qualify, especially if Ribery is suspended for Bayern.

If they don’t, you can guarantee that no one will use the ‘ready-made excuse’ about the travel disruptions. But they should. Sitting on a coach for long periods is horrendous, as almost every lower-league and amateur footballer can testify. Most professional clubs who make long journeys to Torquay or Carlisle or other crumbling footballing outposts like Anfield tend not to perform remarkably well. Mind you, try and imagine sitting on a coach with your workmates for 1,200 miles. Maybe the professionals dealt with it rather well. Rob MacDonald

Inter Industry Stifles Barcelona

So it wasn't goalless after all. Jose Mourinho added another notch to his tactical bedpost with only his third career victory over Barcelona, but his Serie A side did it by applying a bit of traditional Italian resilience to their interpretation of the existing Barcelona blueprint.

The formations were identical. Barca saw Xavi tuck in behind their expected front three and Busquets and Keita used as holding midfielders. Inter lined up as they had at Stamford Bridge, surprisingly so, with Sneijder playing behind Milito while Pandev and Eto'o supported wide. Bold, even at the San Siro and especially by Mourinho's standards.

But it was not principally among these two front fours that the first leg of this semi final was decided. The deployment and mentality of the teams off the ball, as well as their ability to actually defend, held the key.

While Barca's response to losing the ball is to win it back as if their lives depend on it, Inter were quite prepared to soak up pressure. After all, it can take seconds to score a goal. Whether you've spent the previous ten minutes knocking around one-touch passes with gay abandon or kicking Messi and hoofing the ball over the halfway line is probably not a discussion that concerns Mourinho.

Inter's positional discipline won out over Barcelona's free spirits. Off the ball, they didn't panic during Barcelona's 65% of the possession, but were solid, organised and crucially, not afraid to put a foot in where many would be spellbound. On the break, they attacked in numbers, at pace and made a mockery of Barcelona's back four. Or at least two of them.

Having been guilty of some impossibly inept defending in the lead up to Barca's goal, Maicon improved. Meanwhile, having been guilty of getting sucked in towards the ball for Inter's first, Dani Alves was notably absent again as Sneijder nodded the ball across goal for Milito to score the third. With Barca's full-backs so often caught high up the pitch, Sneijder knew that a ball behind Barca's centre-backs would rarely be covered. In the event, most were uncharacteristically overhit, but when the space was exploited, Inter threatened. In the context of the game in general, strong, powerful strikers in advanced wide positions are not opposition that Barca's full backs are used to dealing with, especially with Sneijder enjoying sufficient freedom to roam and gang up on them with his forwards.

Maicon and Zanetti, the former's abberation aside, were committed first to defending, while Barcelona's pair are not defenders. Inter played on this and didn't allow Alves or Maxwell to escape their defensive duties, negating their exuberance going forward, while Mourinho had the luxury of knowing that while Maicon galloped upfield, Zanetti was unlikely to venture far beyond the halfway line. The Argentine even perpetrated that rarest of tricks – a perfectly-timed tackle on Lionel Messi.

This, amid other things going wrong for Barcelona on the night seemed to send Andy Gray into patronising overdrive. Not once was Xavi referred to without the prefix 'little', nor were we spoiled for references to the 'little genius'. With Ibrahimovic also playing like he was 5' 2 and Pedro completing the attacking quartet, size was not on Barca's side. Inter, by contrast, can hardly be described as diminutive, as their defending at times testified. Despite this excellent performance, however, they may have to stand even taller in the Nou Camp. Rob MacDonald

Nitol for Tyldesley

Is the Champions League interesting again? Clive Tyldesley’s worst nightmare may yet manifest itself this week as a defence-less Arsenal take on a defence-less Barcelona – so that’s basically Messi vs Bendtner – and a Rooney-less Manchester United take on a Bayern Munich with added Robben. There may be no English team in the semis for the first time since 2003.

Arsenal’s game with Barcelona last week produced a sublime game of football. Arsenal weren’t punched, kicked or shoved off the ball, even if Fabregas did suffer from the cruncher’s calling card with a broken leg. They were comprehensively outplayed. Barcelona tonight are a different side and talk abounds over the impact Walcott made when he came on, but it is conveniently forgotten he was near anonymous again at the weekend against Wolves.

Two additional factors have been equally ignored. Firstly, while Barca’s defence is rearranged and perhaps a bit sluggish, Walcott has to decide what to do when he gets near the goal, a process that has never been his strong point. He might not even start. Secondly, Barcelona have Lionel Messi and he was quiet at the Emirates. He is rarely quiet for long.

While you can talk up Arsenal’s chances, should you so desire, with fantasies of speed and attacking panache, any assessment of Manchester United’s forthcoming fixture feels like it has to be made with a similar malaise to that sweeping over the team since they took the lead in Germany. Sluggish against Bayern, weary against Chelsea, this is not a United team solely undermined by the loss of Rooney.

United’s only ever-present, Patrice Evra, looks leggy and tired, which is not only a defensive problem as he poses a significant attacking threat. Darren Fletcher, also one of United’s most regular and influential performers could not get close to Bayern’s centre backs and van Bommel as they strode forward last week, and could not stamp his authority on Lampard and Malouda at Old Trafford. This isn’t a crisis for United, but the team aren’t enjoying the same conviction with which they brushed aside Bolton without Rooney. While they are weaker, Bayern are stronger. Two wins out of two and a returning winger bound to give United problems, whether it be Neville or Rafael. It will be tight. Tyldesley will not be sleeping easily.

A few other people having nightmares this week will be those who thought crazy topless fat men were a thing of the Premier League past. Newcastle are back in the top flight, which is good news because we’ll all need something else to laugh at when Liverpool aren’t as useless next season. Well done Chris Hughton and welcome back. Except you, Joey Barton. Rob MacDonald