Barcelona's failure against Real Madrid on Saturday will pain both the team and their supporters -- and rightfully so, as Barca were terrible overall. Despite their promising start to the match, they were effectively dominated by their rivals, especially in the second half. But while plenty has been written, and likely will still be written, about Barcelona's poor display, let's take a look at the positives instead.
Luis Suárez is what Lionel Messi and Neymar have been waiting for
Opposing coaches will be in for a lot of sleepless nights after seeing Barcelona’s new attacking trio on display in El Clasico.
Denis Doyle
Before you scoff at the suggestion that anything positive came out of the match, take a moment and think back to the opening 30 minutes or so. Specifically ponder both the first goal scored by Neymar and Lionel Messi’s wasted chance.
The common thread in both those moments was Luis Suárez, who made a surprise start after returning from his four month suspension. The start came much sooner than expected, particularly as many (myself included) believed there was no way Suárez would be fit for 60, much less 90, minutes.
Doubts were put aside, however, in favor of excitement. Finally, finally, we got to see Barca’s mulit-million dollar three-headed Cerberus of soccer awesomeness unleashed upon the world.
And for the first 30 or so minutes of El Clasico, we saw how dangerous Barcelona are going to be with Messi, Neymar and Suárez all terrorizing defenses. Suárez was all over the place early, delivering magical passes right to the feet of his teammates, including the assist that allowed Neymar to give Barca a 1-0 lead. If not for a tremendous miss by Messi, Suárez would've had a second assist and his team would've been up 2-0.
Who knows how the match might have finished if that shot had gone in?
After that energetic start, however, we saw Suárez getting tired at least ten minutes before the halftime whistle blew, and being virtually invisible for the 25 minutes he played in the second half. Part of that was fatigue, of course. But Real Madrid deserve credit as well, for erasing Messi from the match and completely derailing Barca’s attacking plan.
But most of their opponents won’t have that sort of skill. And once Suárez is fit, Barcelona may be unstoppable anyway, given that he’s a tremendously talented footballer -- as long as he can keep his teeth from sinking into an opponent’s flesh. Don’t be mad. You knew at least one biting joke was coming.
Saturday showed us that Messi, Neymar and Suárez will be able to co-exist. There are some kinks to work out, including how wide Luis Enrique will want his outside strikers to play. He might prefer keeping Neymar and Suárez more central with Messi playing behind them in a deeper role, but that's a good problem to have.
The details are still to come, but for now we have visual evidence that Suárez can make Barca a better team. And once he’s fully fit, his work rate is going to cause serious problem for defenders. His ability to provide pinpoint passes to teammates, some from staggering angles and distances, will only make it harder for teams to defend against Barcelona. Imagine teams not named Real Madrid trying to create a plan to keep Suárez under wraps, while also having to account for the runs and movement of Messi and Neymar and Andrés Iniesta and Ivan Rakitić ...
While Barcelona still have some serious work to do -- especially at the back where they need to get healthy and actually sign a top-class defender before their transfer ban kicks in -- we got a teaser this weekend of what their new attack will be capable of doing to the opposition, and it was scary.
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