Barcelona vs. Atlético: The Anti-Madridista Classic

By: Al | September 18th, 2009

The respect is there, and both teams are aware of how dangerous each other team is. They believe that we’re going to be dangerous at the Camp Nou because we want to redeem ourselves after how bad our season has started off, and we are aware that we are up against the best team in the world, although a bit watered down (aka, they have a lazy Ibrahimovic up in front, and are just beginning to gain their momentum again).

They have a tried and true footballing philosophy, and will play the same pretty 4-3-3 football as always. We have a boring and usually ineffective 4-4-2 and an insane rotation policy. They are also at home. We don’t even have our starting goalkeeper available. Our defense is as bad as ever. Forlán and Aguero could be doing a little better. Pretty much, we are screwed.

Last year’s Barça vs Atlético matches were a delight to watch, minus the fact that we lost 3 out of 4 of them, and that they killed us 6-1 in the first match at home. In total they scored 14 goals against us last season. 14 goals! Yeah, we won that thriller at the Vicente Calderón in February, but they still walked all over us for the entire part of the earlier season. To be fair, we were amidst a little crisis each time they played us, and once we were up and running we were finally able to defeat them.

The thing is, we’re kind of in a crisis right now. Excluding the Champions League qualification matches, we haven’t won a match this season yet. We could not defeat a 10 man Racing Santander at home, I don’t know what that says about our team other than that we’re sucking ass. Whatever is wrong with our team, it absolutely has to stop soon. Somewhere.

It could be the fault of the directors board, by failing to make quality signings and barely strengthening our squad. By the way, we’re 120 million in debt if that has to do with anything (why we stupidly sold Heitinga, for example). Or, it could be the fault of Abel Resino’s poor tactics that have suddenly become flat and outdated over the summer period. There simply is not enough fire in this team. It’s so bad that we couldn’t defeat APOEL at home in the Champions League, and Atlético would have won that match 4-0 had it been played in 08/09. Something absolutely is not right.

I don’t have to talk about Barça. A bunch of you reading this post are Barça fans anyway, so I’ll salvage writing about them. I’ll just say that I’m most worried about Xavi and Messi, who are delightful to watch and not so delightful to our mediocre defense. Even in that one victory we had over them last season, Barça still put three past us. I don’t see how it’s possible to keep a clean sheet against them even now. Pablo vs Messi? Juanito vs Ibrahimovic? Get outta here.

I don’t care how much the Barça players and the king of modesty Guardiola praise our team. They think of us as chumps. Why else would they have lost the last match we played? Because they got incredibly overconfident and had no response to our killer comeback. They are slightly more aware of us now, and once had a hard on for Diego Forlan early in the summer, but they are still secretly expecting to walk all over us.

Don’t even mind the comments by our goalkeeper Roberto, who claimed that the team is so confident that he expects a 0-2 or 0-3 victory over Barcelona. The Atlético press is showered with statements by our team about how they are confident going to the Camp Nou tomorrow. That’s good and all, but the moment Barça begins playing their pretty “pam pam” football and Messi figures out how to slice through our defense, how is anybody supposed to remain confident? It’s going to be very hard for the team not to get scared.

Don’t get me wrong, I have confidence. We have a great team after all. But we are entering a difficult scenario during a difficult time. I can’t predict anything but a Barça victory right now. We need to be realistic.

I’m hoping to eat my words of this entire post. We’re still in for a great game.

Roster:

PORTEROS
13 Roberto.
43 De Gea.

DEFENSAS
2 Valera.
3 Antonio López.
16 Juanito.
17 Ujfalusi.
21 Perea.
22 Pablo Ibáñez.

CENTROCAMPISTAS
9 Jurado.
11 Maxi Rodríguez.
12 Paulo Assunção.
19 Reyes.
20 Simão.
23 Cléber Santana.
28 Koke.
49 Keko.

DELANTEROS
7 Forlán.
10 Kun Agüero.
14 Sinama-Pongolle.