Understanding Barça: Guillem Balagué’s Tiki-Taka Library

There’s a key to developing a deeper appreciation of the football of Barcelona. All you have to do is ask the experts; the men who’ve spent years studying – not just watching – how Barcelona got to where we see them today…

barca-dan-leydon
Dan Leydon is the classiest footy illustrator out there. If you’re ever stuck for a birthday gift for a mate, just click this picture.

 

guillem-balague-guardiolaThere’s a key to developing a deeper appreciation of the football of Barcelona.

All you have to do is ask the experts; the men who’ve spent years studying – not just watching – how Barcelona got to where we see them today.

Guillem Balagué is the author Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography, which was published in 2012.

He’s a man in the know.

Here’s a Clue: It’s not all about Lionel Messi

Please nobody freak out.

The truth is, Messi’s an anomaly.

He’s the best player there’s ever been. In Guardiola’s own words, the Argentine is the best player he’ll ever coach. In fact, let’s just take a moment to marvel at how brilliant he is:

Goosebumps.

Messi’s the diamond cog in an otherwise highly-functioning machine, a system designed to make the most of his talents in a squad that was overhauled specifically for him to flourish.

The point is that the Barcelona football brain was able to create and execute this system. Pep Guardiola, who learned from Johan Cruyff, who learned from Rinus Michels, knew exactly how to get the best from Messi.

Let Guillem explain.

I LOVE these words:

With Pep’s help and his own intuition, Messi started playing football with an accordion-like movement: the further the ball was away from him, the more distance he would put between himself and the ball. The closer it was to him, the closer he would move to get involved. Messi always wants the ball and in order for him to receive it in the best circumstances, Pep has made him understand that looking for the opposition’s weaker side, where there are fewer opponents, behind the line demarcated by the deep-lying midfielders (pivotes) and distancing himself from the centre backs, the ball will find him. Furthermore, in those areas, he will have a bit of extra space to rev his engine, to work his way up through the gears, before hitting the opposition in full flow. And all this with very little effort: he only needed to work up through the gears when he received the ball. Without it he was allowed to take time to recover, to rest while he played. It sounds simple enough, but in mastering that positioning and timing, Messi has shown a thorough understanding of the game and an ability to learn in record time what many players take years to understand.

So what we’re talking about here is education. We’re talking about the sharing of knowledge and insight and conviction, the wills of independent men  from different countries coming together to forge several lifetimes of experience into one distinct and evolving philosophy.

That’s why Barcelona aren’t too bothered if people come to watch them train in the hope of learning their secrets.

As Carles Rexach, a former player and manager of the club says, “Other teams can try to copy us, of course, but we’ve got 30 years of a head start.”

After I finished Another Way of Winning, I was hungry for more, so I asked Guillem to recommend three further books for anyone aspiring to learn more about the club and the characters who have shaped it.

If You Read These Books, You’ll Basically Be a Culé

Barça: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World ~ Graham Hunter

Published: September, 2012 – BackPage Press

Sky Sports, BBC and newspaper correspondent Graham Hunter chronicles the Barcelona of recent years, focusing mainly on the Guardiola era. With genuine personal relationships with Barcelona players and staff, Hunter takes you right into the corridors of La Masia and the Camp Nou.

Favourite passage: “Minguella [Josep Maria Minguella, fomer players’ agent] also recalls with great clarity the process of being convinced by Messi’s talent and then trying to convince others. “Messi’s case was even more difficult than Maradona’s,” he said. “I first saw him when he was 12 and he was not big. Physically, there were doubts whether he’d ever become a good footballer in Europe, but as soon as I saw the videos it was like seeing the light. I believe Leo comes from a marvellous planet, the one where exceptional people like violinists, architects, and doctors are created. The chosen people.”

Buy: Barça: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World
Follow: Graham Hunter on Twitter

Morbo: The Story of Spanish Football ~ Phil Ball

Published: August, 2011 – WSC Books

‘Morbo’ is a Spanish word with an elusive definition, but Ball’s quest to pin down its significance takes you on a tour of the politics and culture of a fractious land. What he reveals will add a fascinating extra dimension to La Liga.

Favourite passage: “It does seem as though some Rubicon was crossed that day, June 14, 1925, some public recognition that things would never be the same again, and that Barcelona had defined itself irrevocably as a community of bolshie traitors, the kidnappers of the dream of a united Spain.”

Buy: Morbo: The Story of Spanish Football
Follow: Phil Ball on Twitter

Barça: A People’s Passion ~ Jimmy Burns

Published: March, 2000 – Bloomsbury Publishing

The deepest of dives into Barcelona’s evolution as a political and sociological phenomenon. You might know every member of the current squad by sight, but if you can’t hold a conversation about the importance of Samitier, Kubala, Koeman and Stoichkov, you’ll soon get found out.

Favourite passage: “And yet supporting Barça was the way of feeling part of something that went above the mediocrity of life, of submerging in the wider universe, of being able to cry and laugh and not be punished for it. It was also a way of being seen to give thanks, for the immigrant cannot survive long if he is deemed to be ungrateful. Thanks to Barça, the immigrant could hold his head high on Sundays and say, I am a Catalan although I come from Andalusia. It is here that I have developed the ability to sell my labour and choose how I spend my scarce leisure hours – following one of the greatest teams in the world. This is where I have learned the little culture that I can share with others; this, ultimately, is my land.”

Buy: Barça: A People’s Passion
Follow: Jimmy Burns on Twitter

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