Barca’s MSN wreaking mass destruction
LIONEL Messi. Luis Suárez. Neymar. All in one team. It will never work. These are three world-class, special players. Their individual stature demands that they feel important.
Their egos will not allow it. There is only room for Messi at Barcelona. Everything revolves around him. First it is Messi. Then Barcelona. Then the rest.
These words were spoken by a friend when Blaugrana assembled their all-South American firepower.
My friend’s fear was that these superstars would be unable to work in tandem.
What with Suárez’s supposed selfish streak?
Neymar, the newest kid on the football block, was just emerging when Barca brought him from Santos.
The Brazilian, my buddy submitted, would be eager to prove to the people of Catalunya and the rest of us football fanatics that his promise is no fluke.
And, he further argued, Messi has been the god of Barcelona.
Illustrious stars like Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto’o and Zlatan Ibrahimovic were shown the door by Pep Guardiola because everything had to revolve around Messi.
The arrival of Suárez and Neymar will wreak havoc for Barca’s harmony.
It was like Bob Marley was answering for me when he sang “time will tell” as his song of the same title provided the soundtrack of our conversation.
Time has indeed told and my good buddy has been proven to be a false prophet.
The envy and jealousy he foresaw was only a figment of his fertile imagination.
He was right about one thing though: the terrific trio has indeed wreaked hurricane-like havoc that paralyses defences and pulverises goalkeepers all around the world. Irrepressible. Telepathic. Indefatigable. Terrific. Intrinsic. America went and looked for imaginary weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Those weapons are Catalunya. The MSN is merciless, savageous (yeah, I’ve just created that word) ninjas.
The only way to stop them is to lock them in Guantanamo Bay and throw the key away.
The latest victims of the three musketeers were Celtic, who were clinically cut and torn into pieces at Camp Nou in the Champions League.
Brendan Rodgers’ Scottish champs were at the receiving end of a record Champions League defeat. Messi hammered a hat-trick. Suárez banged a brace. Neymar also got in the scoring act as did the intelligent Andres Iniesta.
It was not just the goals that were gobsmacking. The build to the final product was glorious.
It is the harmonious way Messi, Suárez and Neymar work with and for each other that makes watching Luis Enrique’s orchestra a beautiful sight to behold.
The MSN’s potency in front of goal works wonders for Barca because their defence is not impenetrable.
It is fragile. Their weakest link. But it bothers not, as long as the ginger-haired boys from Argentina and Brazil and their Uruguay partner in crime are there.
There’s been great partnerships in the past. They’ve been twosomes though.
Andy Cole and Dwight York terrorised rearguards with rottweiler determination.
Marcelo Salas and Ivan Zamorano formed a formidable partnership and sent chills down the spines of the opponents of their country Chile.
But the MSN is sky-high, in a league of its own.
To be alive and watch such mesmerising talent is a blessing and a half.
After watching helplessly as his Celtic were crushed, Rodgers summed up the massacre thus:
“Professionally it is never nice when that happens [but] these are top-class players and they have done that to much better teams than us.”
And the last word belongs to Enrique: “Whoever we had had in front of us today would have found it difficult against us.
“There’s little they can do to stop it when we play with this precision.”