Barca v. Man U: 5 things you have not been told to look for yet

Messi doesn’t dive

Many column inches have been dedicated to the fact that “Messi doesn’t dive.” To a certain extent this is absolutely true; Messi doesn’t dive because when he has the ball the last thing he wants to do is stop play and take a free kick.

Think about it. When was the last time that you saw Messi lob a free kick in to the mixer for one of their big boys to head home? Never. They actually play the ball backwards on free kicks and short on corners.

You could consider that a back-handed compliment to Messi and it is intended that way. But the other reason he doesn’t dive is because he’s really, really, REALLY good. He’s so good that he knows if you’re diving in to stop him with a foul it means one less person to beat between him and the goal. He also knows that with a man down he’s got a far greater chance of scoring than if he went down and let you organize your defense for the free kick.

And finally, it’s not that Messi never dives, he just doesn’t dive where you expect him to. Diving is Messi’s last resort, when all else fails, he’ll go down like Wayne Rooney in a massage parlor, or Wayne Rooney at Old Trafford, or Wayne Rooney in the Champions League final at Wembley.

Oh Messi dives, he just uses it to his maximum advantage.

Wayne Rooney does dive

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time you already know that Wayne “I have never intentionally dived” Rooney is a serial diver. If you’ve been reading this blog you will also know that he usually dives when United are behind. I’m expecting a 2-0 score line in the 75th minute, Wayne Rooney gets into the box and pulls a dive that would make Greg Louganis proud. I bet the grass barely even ripples.

Barcelona does dive, on defense

Trust me, we will talk about something other than cheating in a minute but since I expect that 60% of today’s game will be cheating I thought three sections on cheating would be appropriate.

Anyway, there’s a reason why Busquets, Pique and Alves are known for their diving: because that’s how Barcelona play defense. If they lose the ball and if they can’t recover the ball in the first few seconds, then the team will slip into defense where any 50-50 ball, any aerial challenge, any tackle, any non-tackle, any ball played near them, arm in the air, or if someone points a laser pen at them will immediately result in a man down on the field.

When Javier Signing of the Season Hernandez gets the ball or Rooney runs at Pique they will be exposed and their only recourse will be to feign injury. Mark my words.

You can’t guard him you can only hope to contain him

The temptation for many is to tell Man U to play Barcelona the way that they play Arsenal; sit back and hit them on the counter. And there’s a good chance that they might even do this seeing how they have dominated Arsenal in all competitions over the last five years.

But Barcelona is way beyond anything that Arsenal are doing both with and without the ball, plus they have a player who can turn a game on a dime. Arsenal pass well but Barcelona’s passing is slicker than cat shit through a tin horn. And when Arsenal lose the ball they tend to sit back but Barcelona press the ball harder than Big Pun erm, crushes a lot. And if those two things weren’t enough, they’ve got the best player I have ever seen, running defenses into ruins.

I’ve read a number of people I respect recommend that Man U man-mark Messi with Rio Ferdinand. Sure, that’s not a bad plan, if you don’t mind having your best defender in the center circle as Xavi, Villa and Iniesta carve Evra and Vidic to pieces. That’s if Ferdinand could keep up with Messi physically, which I don’t think he can do for more than 15 minutes or so.

In fact, I would say that man-marking Messi is exactly what Barcelona want teams to do. Barcelona thrive on imbalance and creating spaces where they can overload a team’s defense and the sight of Ferdinand flailing around in midfield trying to keep pace with the world’s best footballer would be a feast of imbalance and chaos upon which they would sup.

A better plan would be to man-mark everyone else and force Messi to beat you one-on-one. Which he would still do, but at least you’d have your dignity.

Who do I want to win?

This is a tough one.

I can’t stand Barcelona because their players cheat, they are classless, they are constantly tapping Cesc up, their supporters are smug gits, their motto is “More than a Club”, the whole club seems to get away with bloody murder at every turn, and Busquets is apparently a racist.

I also can’t stand Manchester United because their players cheat, they are classless, Evra has taken to tapping Nasri up, Wayne Rooney cheats on his wife, their supporters are smug gits, the whole club seem to get away with bloody murder at every turn, but at least they aren’t apparently racists.

This is a tough one… the club with the racist or the club without the racist?

You know, for once I’d like it if us fans could win. Why can’t we just see a good game of football fought by two teams who give everything to win the game and play like professional sportsmen?

So, if I were to wish for anyone to win it would be us, the fans. Unfortunately, I can’t see that happening.

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