Two months away from the final, Barça is where they should be: aspiring to win important titles, driven by Messi’s ambition, ready to carry the team on his back.  But there are also other teams that are in the same position.

In times like these, where a team can’t afford to slip up in the league or in Europe, the value of Messi is immeasurable.  His greatness.  Not only because of his decision to carry the team on his back, but also for stepping up his game when necessary. Also for his generosity, like allowing a teammate to take a penalty kick in order to restore some confidence, a gesture that is much appreciated in the dressing room and shows how special he really is.

That double value of Messi, which deserves its own article at a later date, strengthens a team that needs all of its concentration for the final stretch of the season. It’s especially needed in the league because Madrid isn’t going to gift anything. And if Barça stays focused, worse for Madrid. In the Champions, because you’re four games from the final, every detail counts. Two months from today, all of the prizes and accolades will have been claimed. For Barça, sixteen games in total. With the option of winning two hugely important titles. It’s what one demands from a big team: not to win it all, but to give it their all for the last two months. And it’s almost impossible to win it all because there are others that are just as good.

In England, Manchester and Arsenal are in the position to win the same titles as the blaugrana. In Germany, there is Bayern. In Italy, Inter Milan. And in France, Bordeaux and Lyon. Not so much CSKA Moscow, whose league just started. Seven of the eight best teams in Europe could win the same trophies as Barça. And only one team can win the Champions League.

Teams have a very busy calendar this year due to the World Cup. For Barça it’s back to normal: two games a week. I could be wrong because there could always be injuries, but I have the feeling that from now until Barça drops out of Europe or makes it to the final, we’ll see very few injuries. The best part of the year is here, the footballer knows it and doesn’t want to miss it. It’s that extra concentration or motivation, without being able to prove it scientifically, that makes a player recover faster than he otherwise would.

When has Barça had the most injuries this year? Between the elimination in the King’s Cup and the Round of 16 in the Champions League. Interesting, right? Exactly during the so called long weeks, when they had more time to train and recover because there was only one game per week. Explanations?  More so than February being the most difficult month of the calendar for several reasons, there are intangible reasons for such a loss of freshness that has a lot to do with less intensity or better said, more relaxation.

The impossible dream

The good thing about doing the draw for the quarter finals and the semis at the same time is that every team can start to write their own story. And if we all wrote something down and revisited it on the day of the final, there would be many mistakes. The first, stating as fact, supposed superiorities and/or inferiorities. There are no weak teams within the final eight. The other teams want to win just as bad as you do. The tiebreaker is in taking advantage of your strengths and hiding your weaknesses. And doing it against a team that you will definitely play (Arsenal), not against the one you hope to play afterwards (Inter).

In the world of football, Arsenal-Barça is a gift for all lovers of the sport, colors and preferences aside. Those that saw Chelsea-Inter, for example, will understand it immediately. Exciting? Sure. In a single elimination format where only one team advances and especially when it comes down to the return leg, it’s a guaranteed excitement. And the football? Horrendous, because neither of the two teams were able to string together more than 3 passes.

In the case of Arsenal, the technical quality and ball possession are similar to Barça. If you look a little deeper, there is more quality and experience in the current champions. From midfield on up, Wenger’s team –a shame about Van Persie’s injury– has a lot of talent, offensive capacity and goals. Their problem is within the defense. In other words, their ability to recover balls in the midfield. They aren’t as strong in that aspect. If you misplace a horizontal pass and they intercept it, it’s not so much a virtue of theirs as it is a huge mistake on your part. This could happen against Arsenal or any other team.

Pep only spoke the truth

I can’t help but point out one thing in respect to the intentions of the Technical Committee of Referees, who asked the Competition Committee to suspend Guardiola. And all that for publically saying the truth, that two referees –not all– lied about what Pep said in the game against Almeria.  In that game, the referee made a mistake by not signaling a penalty in favor of Barça and also by expelling a blaugrana and not a player from Almeria. Where someone else would have made a big deal, Guardiola didn’t complain. And you still want to punish him? The punishment already happened that day. And that was making Barça lose two points.